A Winter's Tale
by TechnicolorNina
Summary: The folks with nowhere else to go all gather at Asuka's for Christmas. Hijinks ensue as Yubel searches for the meaning of Christmas, Fubuki searches for . . . something, and Johan searches for an escape from jet lag and Edo Phoenix.
1. December 21

**Title**: A Winter's Tale**  
Chapter Title**: December 21**  
Author**: Nina/**TechnicolorNina** **  
Fandom**: Yu-Gi-Oh!: GX**  
Genre**: Humour/Romance/General**  
Pairing/Characters**: Jyuudai, Yubel, Asuka, Fubuki, Johan**  
Word Count**: 1 865**  
Spoilers:** Post-series.**  
Story Rating**: PG-13**  
Chapter Rating**: PG-13**  
Story Summary**: The folks with nowhere else to go all gather at Asuka's for Christmas. It transpires that Yubel doesn't know what Christmas _is_, Asuka's pile of term papers just keeps growing, and something odd is going on with Fubuki and Johan . . . who just wants to get away from jet lag and Edo Phoenix.**  
Chapter Summary**: Folks arrive. The madness begins.  
**Notes**: None  
**Feedback**: There may be something out there that's better than a review containing concrit, but if there is, I haven't found it yet. So if you have two minutes and you wouldn't mind? Please? Arigatou. (And concrit is cool. Flames are not.)  
**Special Thanks/Dedications**: For everyone over the years who tried to bully me into writing comedy again. YOU ASKED FOR IT.

* * *

_A winter's tale, can't get enough  
Through driving snow, we're on our way home  
To the party, all the colours shining on her smile  
She takes your breath away . . . _

-- "Spirit of Christmas Past," Mostly Autumn

* * *

"And so this is Christmas—I hope you have fun," some popular singer expounds from the radio on Asuka's kitchen counter, competing with the clicks and clacks of coffee mugs moving gently back and forth beneath the water in the sink. "The near and the dear ones, the old and the young—"

"Hi, Asuka!"

Asuka isn't startled by Jyuudai's voice from the living room of her small teacher's flat, although there's enough snow on the ground outside to bury a full-grown man to the waist and she has heard no sound of a door opening or closing. It's simply the way things happen when Jyuudai is around.

"I'm in the kitchen," she calls, and when Jyuudai walks in there is not the slightest hint of frosty colour in his face, nor any trace of snow on the worn and beaten blue jeans he is wearing. Still—there are more pressing matters, like the tight hug he pulls her cheerfully into before even shucking his jacket.

"Did you find the bus station?" she asks. Jyuudai shakes his head.

"Snowed in. I came out of your closet instead," he answers, hanging his jacket carefully over the back of a chair before leaning against the fridge. "Fubuki's not here yet?"

"His plane was rerouted and he told me not to wait for him at the airport. He thinks he's going to rent a car in this weather," Asuka answers, putting a freshly-washed coffee cup on the towel by the sink. "I think he's out of his mind. Do you want coffee?"

"Coffee'd be great," Jyuudai answers, and in his voice Asuka can hear just the slightest hint of tiredness. Of course—any time is a good time to try working on those who think they are alone, but she imagines the Light has a much easier time at those points in the year that emphasize family and togetherness. "Hear from Johan yet?"

"Not since he left Heathrow, but the weather advisories on the news said to expect delays up to six hours for planes leaving New York. Milk and two sugars, right?"

"Yeah. You know, Asuka, you don't have to clean the whole place from top to bottom. It's just us," Jyuudai says, as Asuka puts his cup down on the table and then sits with one of her own.

"It's only a few dishes that wouldn't go in the dishwasher, Jyuudai," she tells him. "And it's Christmas." She smiles. "It's good to see you."

"You, too," he answers, and then takes a large swig of coffee. "Mmm."

The radio stops playing a song about pretty paper and pretty ribbons of blue and starts playing an ad for the local mall. Asuka considers getting up to shut off the stream of commercialism and decides she likes the chance to talk to Jyuudai in person too much to interrupt it.

"Where were you before here?" she asks, paying only marginal attention to the radio as it tells her that everything she _really_ wants this holiday season is at ASM Jewelers. Jyuudai shrugs.

"Around. I visited my parents last week. They've got my dad's mother there now. Mom quit the hospital to stay home so they wouldn't have to hire an aide, so I saw her a lot." Jyuudai takes a sip of his coffee. "I guess Gram had a fall and they didn't want her living alone. And then last week I stopped in Trondheim for a couple of nights—"

"Wasn't Johan at North School last week?" Asuka breaks in. Jyuudai nods.

"Yeah. He said last year I could crash there if he wasn't home and I needed somewhere to go. I get a bed to sleep in and he doesn't have to worry about having someone come in to check his messages and water his plants," Jyuudai explains. Asuka can't keep from rolling her eyes just a little. Only in Jyuudai's world is it perfectly normal to stop and stay at a friend's when the friend is out of town. "And then I went to see O'Brien. Did you know it's summer in Johannesburg right now?"

"That's what Fubuki said when he was in Africa," Asuka says. "Their seasons are reversed." She pauses. "I'm worried about him."

"Who, O'Brien?" Jyuudai also pauses, looking at her quizzically over the top of his cup. "Because when I was there—"

Asuka shakes her head. "Not O'Brien. Fubuki."

"Is he sick?"

"I don't know," she admits. "He sounded all excited when he found out there were people coming, but then I told him it was going to be you and Johan and he . . . " she shrugs. "I'm not sure if he's not thrilled about sharing a bed or if he's sick and doesn't want me to know or if it's something else. He keeps changing the subject when I try to bring it up."

Jyuudai frowns down into his coffee. "That is weird." Then he looks up. "Want me keep an eye on him?"

Asuka's return smile is nervous, but genuine. "If you wouldn't mind. I _think_ he's all right, but—"

"With all the weird stuff that happened at the Academia you never really want to place bets on that," Jyuudai finishes for her. "I understand."

Asuka opens her mouth to answer. Then the song on the radio picks up all at once, and what she planned to say is lost as the words tumble over her thoughts—_a winter's tale, can't get enough, through driving snow we're on our way home._ Then the front door does open, and a male voice rings through the apartment.

"Through hardships untold and dangers unnumbered I have fought my way for the fair maiden of this city! I require water for my horses and wine for my men!" Fubuki's voice calls, and Asuka laughs even as she rolls her eyes.

Some things never change.

* * *

"Name any six zodiac signs."

"Easy," Fubuki says. "Aries, Aquarius, that one with the twins . . . . er . . . "

"Gemin—" Jyuudai claps a hand over his own mouth. Fubuki ignores Jyuudai's chagrined look.

"Yeah! Gemini! Uh . . . " He sinks back into thought.

Jyuudai is ready to call time when Fubuki speaks again. "Aries, Aquarius, Gemini, dragon, horse, and snake!" he says, rather brightly. "Those are zodiac signs too!"

Asuka gives him a _look._ "Fubuki . . . "

"Hey, you didn't say which zodiac, you just said zodiac signs," Fubuki points out. Asuka looks at Jyuudai.

"Do you want to accept that?"

Jyuudai's answer comes slowly. "I don't know. He _is_ technically right, but I think—"

"Hello?"

Asuka does not jump from the table exactly, but she is still on her feet in an instant, and in the living room before Jyuudai can even finish his thoughts. Then she calls back into the kitchen.

"Johan is here!"

The party, such as it is, moves immediately into the living room, where a rather windswept Johan Andersen is waiting to greet them—first Jyuudai with a bear hug to match his own, then a slightly awkward nod to Fubuki in the manner of people who are friends more by association than actual experience.

"I think that was the worst plane trip I've had since . . . ever," Johan finishes, stripping off his jacket. "There were these two kids in the row behind me who were—what?"

He's looking at all of them, but it's Jyuudai who speaks.

"I'll bite. Johan, what are you wearing?"

Johan looks down at his button-down shirt and suspenders somewhat distastefully. "I got conned into being a chaperone at the holiday dance before everyone went home and some smart aleck had the bright idea to theme it 'Days of Yesteryear' instead of doing something actually, you know, Christmassy. I didn't have time to change after cleanup. It was straight from the gym they held it in to my room and from there to the airport." He stretches, then yawns widely and tries to smother it with his arm. "At least it was decent to fly in. I wouldn't have wanted to be some of the girls."

"Where's your bag?" Fubuki asks; there is only one bag in Johan's immediate vicinity, a scuffed canvas backpack that surely is not big enough for five days' worth of clothing. The look on Johan's face as he turns in Fubuki's direction is both long-suffering and irritated.

"They don't know. They think it might have been on the plane I was _supposed_ to be on that went to Atlanta instead of Chicago. I was going to just go out tomorrow and get a couple of clean shirts if they don't call by morning to say they found it, but—" he looks out the window. "I kind of get the feeling nobody's going much of anywhere tomorrow."

"Probably not," Asuka admitted. "They're calling for another fourteen inches tonight. It's all over the news as 'The Blizzard of The Century.'"

Johan sighs and picks up the backpack. "I guess I'll—"

"You can borrow my stuff!" Fubuki cuts in. "Term's out, isn't it, sis?"

Asuka nods. "We can use the washers for free right now."

Johan's smile is tired, but still clearly relieved. "Thanks."

"No problem." Fubuki reaches for the strap of the backpack and shoulders it. "Second door, right?"

"Is that the room with the bookshelves? Asuka told me to put my stuff in there," Jyuudai cuts in, and then he glances at Asuka as Fubuki and Johan first glance at each other and then off in opposite directions.

"I thought it might be better if you had a bedmate who doesn't kick hard enough to leave bruises," Asuka says, and Fubuki gives her an odd look.

"How do you know whether or not Johan kicks?"

"Because he stayed with me for four days while we fixed Manjyome's old bed and I told her," Jyuudai cuts in. "He doesn't kick, he just makes noise. All night long. Sometimes he even makes sense."

"I'm too tired to make noise all night long," Johan mumbles. "I can just stay on the sofa tonight and we can figure it out tomorrow?"

"I spent half of last week sleeping in your bed," Jyuudai cuts in. "I'll take the sofa."

"Half the time you don't _have_ a bed. Take one while you've got it."

"Fubuki, is it really going to kill you to share for a night?" Asuka breaks in, and Fubuki shrugs and shakes his head.

"Not the one with the idea to stick him on the sofa, sis," he points out, and seats Johan's bag more firmly on his shoulder before adding in a manner that seems almost reluctant: "It makes more sense if he's with me if he's borrowing my clothes anyway." He indicates the hallway. "Come on. You were on that plane how long?"

"With all the delays? More than a day," Johan answers. "I think if you add in airport time it's been close to thirty hours."

Fubuki puts a hand on his shoulder to guide him down the hallway, and behind his back, Asuka and Jyuudai share another one of those glances.

Definitely odd.


	2. December 22

**Title**: A Winter's Tale  
**Chapter Title**: December 22  
**Author**: Nina/**TechnicolorNina**  
**Fandom**: Yu-Gi-Oh!: GX  
**Genre**: Humour/Romance/General  
**Pairing/Characters**: Jyuudai, Yubel, Asuka, Fubuki, Johan  
**Word Count**: 5 624  
**Spoilers:** Post-series.  
**Story Rating**: PG-13  
**Chapter Rating**: PG-13  
**Story Summary**: The folks with nowhere else to go all gather at Asuka's for Christmas. It transpires that Yubel doesn't know what Christmas _is_, Asuka's pile of term papers just keeps growing, and something odd is going on with Fubuki and Johan . . . who just wants to get away from jet lag and Edo Phoenix.  
**Chapter Summary**: The gang is snowed in. Fubuki takes a trip. Asuka and Jyuudai talk, and everyone sits down to watch a movie.  
**Notes**: None  
**Feedback**: There may be something out there that's better than a review containing concrit, but if there is, I haven't found it yet. So if you have two minutes and you wouldn't mind? Please? Arigatou. (And concrit is cool. Flames are not.)  
**Special Thanks/Dedications**: This chapter is for Drea, at whose house half of it was written.

_

* * *

_

_Oh, my love, we've had our share of tears  
Oh, my friend, we've had our hopes and fears  
Oh, my friends, it's been a long hard year  
But now it's Christmas  
Yes it's Christmas  
Thank God it's Christmas_ -- "Thank God It's Christmas," Queen

* * *

Jyuudai wakes up late—not exactly an unusual situation, but Yubel has let him sleep, and that much is unusual. He yawns and stretches and then tries to look out the window—"tries" being the operative word. His view is hampered by a wall of snow packed tightly against the glass.

"What time is it?"

"Late," he hears Yubel's voice say aloud, and when he turns she's sitting on the bed behind him. "_She_ went to her office. Her brother said he was going to try to find the car."

"_Find_ the car?" Jyuudai blinks.

"He said it was snowed in. I heard an engine about an hour ago, so I assume he found it."

Jyuudai stretches, then pulls off his pyjama top and reaches for a turtleneck. "How'd Asuka get to her office if it's snowed in that bad?"

"The campus was already cleared. Apparently some students are staying here for the break."

"Oh." He thinks of Johan's stories about North School. "I guess that makes sense." He considers changing out of the sweatpants he slept in and decides it can wait until after breakfast. "Is there food?"

"I hadn't looked."

"Then—" Jyuudai grins. "Let's go find out."

* * *

Asuka unlocks the door with a sigh. Getting to her office was far more of a challenge than it ought to have been—although the sidewalks were cleared, nobody had bothered with salt or cinders—and getting back with fresh snow to overlay the ice had been even worse. Still, she'd gotten what she went for, and that is some small comfort. She slips off her shoes, then sets her laptop case down on the coffee table and makes for the kitchen. She has no doubt Jyuudai and Johan have demolished the rest of the cinnamon buns between the two of them, but with luck there might still be coffee.

"I don't know if Asuka will believe me, but I can probably talk to Johan if he wakes up before Fubuki gets back," Jyuudai's voice says. Asuka tilts her head a little, wondering who on earth Jyuudai is talking to if not Johan or her brother. Then she wonders how she could be so foolish—Jyuudai is not technologically inclined, but he does have a mobile. There's nothing to keep him from making a phone call.

She slips into the kitchen, massaging the back of one sore leg, and glances up at the table to say hello. Then she gasps.

Jyuudai is not on his mobile. There's a cinnamon bun and part of an orange in front of him, but his attention is instead on the winged creature, easily twice his size, sitting to his left. Both his head and the creature's jerk up, both looking fearful and guilty, as though she's caught them doing far more in her kitchen than holding hands. Asuka sees those giant wings flare in alarm and holds up the one hand not currently involved in pulling her sock back up her leg.

"No—"

It occurs to her suddenly just what—or rather, just _who_—is sitting in her kitchen alongside one of her best friends, and in the flash of a second she thinks she will have, she speaks again. "Stay."

The wings relax, but that wary, watchful look on the face does not. Asuka straightens up and flexes her foot to try making the muscles in her legs relax. "I was just coming in for coffee."

Jyuudai nods. Then his eyes flicker, first to the large, inhuman hand he is holding and then back to Asuka's face. "I—guess you guys haven't really met. Yet. In person, I mean."

Asuka shakes her head before letting her own eyes flicker back to the winged creature—the dragon? Is this really what a dragon looks like?—sitting beside her friend. "Tenjouin Asuka," she says. "I hope you'll forgive me. I had a hard time getting across campus and . . . " She trails off, trying to determine whether there is a way to explain her reluctance to let go of the oven to shake hands without admitting she fell and may be nursing a pulled muscle. The last thing she wants is her brother fussing and worrying over something a heating pad and a few days will heal. The dragon-creature waves her—its?—free hand lazily.

"And humans weren't made for walking on ice," she finishes in Asuka's place. "Yubel, late of Amneth in Delain."

Asuka nods and takes a tentative step toward the coffeemaker. Pain flares dully in her leg, but does not stab the way a serious injury would. She reaches for a coffee cup. "I . . . didn't know duel spirits could take on a form in this world without holograms," she says at last.

"Most can't," Jyuudai says.

"But he's the Haou," Yubel injects.

"I can do a lot of stuff most duelists can't," Jyuudai finishes with a sheepish smile. It's almost eerie hearing the way their conversation flickers back and forth, and Asuka is reminded suddenly, almost forcibly, of times as children when she and Fubuki did nearly the same thing. Then she rests her weight on her left leg to reach for the coffeepot, and nearly drops the cup in her other hand. Jyuudai's hand is suddenly on her back.

"Sit down," he says. "I can get it."

Asuka is tempted to argue until she realises Jyuudai has already taken the cup out of her hand. At last she makes her way to the table and sits. Jyuudai pours her a cup, looking at her out of the corner of his eye.

"Are you okay?"

Asuka nods and reaches for a cinnamon bun. "I fell getting back here. I put deicer on the steps, but there's none on the campus . . . not that it'd do much in this kind of snow anyway." She takes a bite and lets the icing dissolve, enjoying the sweet and spice all mixed. "Don't tell Fubuki," she says, almost pleading, and Jyuudai chuckles.

"Take it easy for a day or two and I won't," he promises, pushing the butter in her direction. Asuka considers turning it down and then spreads some on her bun, instead. "Did you get what you were after or do you want me to go?"

"I got my laptop and the final exam papers for my third-years," she says. "The second-years can wait until after Christmas. I didn't invite you all here so I could work the whole time."

Jyuudai smiles, and out of the corner of her eye she sees him squeeze Yubel's hand. Then Yubel speaks.

"What _is_ this Christmas? Some kind of solstice festival?"

Asuka opens her mouth, but for a moment nothing will come out. "Well, it's—the Solstice is on the twenty-first, and Christmas is . . . it _started_ as a religious holiday, but—"

"And by 'religious' you mean it has some significance to those who worship the gods of this dimension?" Yubel cuts in.

"Only the Christian god. But over time, because Christianity was so widespread at one point, it started to be a secular holiday too—"

"And this Christian god of yours is Santa Claus?"

"No, the Christian god is God," Jyuudai breaks in. "He doesn't have a name. I don't think."

"Yahweh," Asuka answers absently. "One of my Jewish students told me. Santa Claus is the secular figurehead—or—he was religious at one point, too, I think, but—"

"_—believe_ this!" another voice breaks in from the living room. There is a heavy sound, and then Fubuki's voice calls her name a split second before he appears in the doorway.

Asuka sees his eyes widen, and she jumps to her feet before her brother can find himself on the wrong end of an attack he surely won't come out on top of. Behind her she feels a breeze as those giant wings flare again, and then her leg gives out beneath her as she tries to take a step forward. Instead of getting between Yubel and Fubuki, she instead ends up falling directly into her brother's arms.

"What did you do?"

Asuka puts a hand on his shoulder and pushes herself upright before he can swear some kind of bloody and misplaced vengeance. "I slid outside," she says, amending the truth just enough to keep him from swinging her into his arms and carrying her off to the sofa. "I'll be all right. I just landed wrong when I stood up." She turns around and sees Jyuudai standing in front of Yubel, an almost comic gesture of protection when his size is compared to hers. Even with her wings pulled tightly back against her sides, she's easily twice Jyuudai's size. "Fubuki, this is—"

Then she realises she's gesturing to thin air. In front of the place Yubel was sitting only a moment before, Jyuudai is standing with his head cocked. Then he looks sheepish.

"I thought she might say something, but I think she's kind of sulking," he says. "She didn't get the rest of the orange peel."

"Orange . . . peel . . . ?"

Jyuudai nods and sits down to go to work on his cinnamon bun. "She really likes them for some reason. I guess they were some kind of sweet in Delain. You know, the country she was from before . . . "

Asuka nods, then realises her brother is trying to manoeuvre her back to the table. "Fubuki, I'm _fine_," she protests, and then she is sitting and he is at the sink, reaching for one of her clean washcloths.

"You will be if you put heat on that," he answers. "Otherwise it's going to feel like hell two days from now." He runs a washcloth under the tap, squeezes it, folds it, and brings it back to the table, pressing it in place against her calf before letting her take it. She smiles in spite of herself.

"Thank you."

Fubuki waves it off and looks back up at Jyuudai. "What was she doing here?"

"We were just having breakfast," Jyuudai answers, and beneath his even tone Asuka can hear a hint of anger. "We don't get to share very often."

Any further discussion on the subject is cut off when Johan appears in the doorway wearing a pair of cuffed pyjama bottoms and a very old T-shirt with a silkscreen of a white-haired boy holding a bird out to a girl in a ballet costume on the front. He scrubs one hand across his face and then peers at the group in the kitchen out of one eye.

"Time's it?" he murmurs. Jyuudai looks at his wristwatch.

"Three—wait—"

"A quarter to twelve," Asuka says. "I told Fubuki to let you sleep."

Johan nods and yawns, heading sleepily for the table. Jyuudai pushes the pan of cinnamon buns toward him. "Have one."

Johan takes one out of the pan, spreads some butter over it, and nibbles while he makes for the coffeepot. "'S good."

"You sleep okay?" Fubuki asks. Johan holds up the hand with the cinnamon bun in it while he finishes his rather large swallow of coffee.

"Fantastic," he answers. "What's the weather like?"

"How long can you tread snow?"

Johan snorts laughter into his coffee cup. "That bad, huh?"

"Yeah." Fubuki gestures to the sliding glass door leading onto Asuka's small patio. "Get it open and you'll be way ahead of me."

Johan looks at the snow piled against the door, then shakes his head. "Should it be cleared off? You know, so the glass doesn't crack?"

"I'll get to it after the breakfast dishes—" Asuka begins. Fubuki cuts her off.

"Not a chance, sis. Not with that leg." He reaches for the coffeepot and refills Johan's cup. Jyuudai waves at him a little.

"Me too? Please?"

Fubuki tops off Jyuudai's coffee, gestures at Asuka with the pot, and puts it back when she shakes her head. Then he sits down with a cup of his own and reaches for a cinnamon bun.

"I called the airport. No luck on your bag," he says. Johan shakes his head.

"My name isn't listed as Johan Andersen," he says. "I learned that lesson after someone stole my bag going to Belgium. I think they were looking for my deck."

Fubuki whistles between his teeth. "What did you have it tagged as?"

"Bjørn Rasmussen," Johan answers. "It's my mum's dad's name."

Fubuki nods and takes another bite of his bun. "I can call again sometime today."

Johan shakes his head, then yawns so widely his jaw looks momentarily dislocated even from behind the hand he tries to stifle it with. "I can do it."

Fubuki looks back out the patio door, then down at his coffee and up at Asuka. "Hey sis, is that movie-rental place still around?"

"The one in the student centre?"

"Yeah."

"I think so," she answers. "I don't go down there often."

"I can check after I get the snow off. See if we can get anything to watch," he suggests. Asuka just nods.

She already has the feeling it's going to be a very interesting evening.

* * *

"What did you get?"

Asuka listens to the conversation as she simmers milk to make hot chocolate. Some movie-musical from the 1980s . . . _The Dark Knight_, almost certainly a pick for Jyuudai . . . something else she doesn't catch.

"Is that the one that came out a couple of years ago about the barber who—"

"Yeah. You want to watch that one?"

"Yeah!"

Asuka looks behind her, just in time to see Jyuudai select a box of crackers from the top shelf and Yubel flicker into tangibility so she can reach up to pull it down. There's something oddly graceful about the pair, she thinks—the way they work together and the way they somehow don't seem in the least mismatched in spite of the disparity in their heights and Yubel's appearance in general.

"Go ahead and get anything you think looks good," she suggests, offering Yubel a quiet smile when she's the first to turn. As long as nobody is raising havoc, Asuka doesn't mind adding a fifth to the group. "We can always put back what we don't eat."

:"If you suggest such a thing to Jyuudai, there won't be anything to put back," Yubel says. Asuka stifles a chuckle, then turns off the burner and pours the milk off into four cups. She pauses, hesitates, then directs a question back over her shoulder.

"Do you—want a cup? Yubel?"

"We can share," Jyuudai answers. Asuka nods and tops off the four she's already made, then runs water into the pan to keep it from filming over. Fubuki strolls into the kitchen, leaving Johan to figure out the DVD player.

"Need help, sis?"

"Can you just take two of these?" She gestures to the mugs on the counter. Fubuki reaches for a pair of them with his usual grin and pecks her on the cheek.

"Looks great."

"It's powder and milk, Fubuki," she points out, but he's already on his way back to the living room. Asuka sighs, takes the remaining two mugs, and follows, hearing someone open the fridge behind her and paying little attention.

"I think you have to hit the—that one," Fubuki says over Johan's shoulder, pointing at something on the DVD remote control. Johan hits a button, and suddenly Fubuki in glasses pops up on the screen.

"Wilson Keegan is a very ordinary man," says the unmistakeable Hollywood Trailer Voiceover Man, and Fubuki groans.

"Aww, hit it again. That movie is . . . " he trails off and reaches for the button, but not before music plays and a gypsy woman announces "I am Madame Rue" in a thick Slavic accent.

"Oh, hey, is this the one they asked me to duel you for?" Johan asks—nearly chirps, really. "With all the girls chasing that—"

A fancy sound effect announces another scene change, and a very shirtless-and-possibly-more Fubuki appears in bed next to an equally topless redhead.

"Now, his problems aren't so ordinary," the droll voice of Hollywood Trailer Voiceover Man says, and Asuka closes her eyes.

"Just what I needed to see before bedtime. Thank you, Fubuki."

"Not my fault what timeslots they put these commercials in, sis. It's—there!" The peppy soundtrack disappears, replaced after a moment by some kind of remixed Broadway. Asuka opens her eyes and is confronted with the image of a glowering, slightly unkempt man holding a straight razor.

"_Definitely_ what I wanted to see right before bed," she says, as Jyuudai plunks down in a chair behind her. "Johnny Depp murdering people."

"Johnny Depp is a great thing to see right before bed," Johan tells her. "Especially if he's not being dubbed over by that one Norwegian guy who sounds drugged all the time. I'd rather just get subtitles if I can't follow."

Asuka rolls her eyes and sits, passing Jyuudai his hot chocolate before looking for Yubel. "Did she go back in—?"

"She's right _here,_ thank you," says a prickly voice from the vicinity of Jyuudai's knees, and a wing unfolds enough for Asuka to see the scaled head resting on Jyuudai's thigh. "Just because I can blend doesn't mean I'm not in the room."

Asuka feels Fubuki getting ready to retort and seats herself, reaching for the remote before a nasty argument can break out. "I'm sorry. You just _do_ hide well. Especially in the dark."

Yubel refolds her wings with a quiet fluttering noise and stares hard at the remote. "I thought you shut off the television."

"It's a different remote," Johan says from his place next to Fubuki on the sofa. Asuka can't help admiring how even his voice is, given the history he has with the dragon-woman on the floor. "We're watching a movie on a disk you can play any time, instead of television where you 're limited by the TV schedule. You can still use a remote for a DVD player, just not the same one."

Yubel lays her head back against Jyuudai's knee. Asuka watches Jyuudai rest his hand on top of her head, then turns back to the television. She presses play, and a ship appears on the screen.

It's sometime around the point Sweeney Todd is holding his razor to the insane pie-woman's throat and telling her he'll come back when she has judge on the menu that Asuka hears a sigh and a quiet murmur of nonsense she can't understand. She looks to her left and puts a hand to her mouth so she won't just burst out laughing at the sight of Johan cuddled up against her brother's side, very clearly asleep and very clearly dreaming. Fubuki looks away from the screen long enough to bring his left hand to his lips: _shhh._ Asuka looks down before she nods, afraid of laughing anyway before she can look back to the screen. She glances right, instead, sharing a wry smile with Jyuudai before looking back at the screen.

She skips most of the second half of the movie, preferring to make the cookie dough she hasn't yet finished instead of watching Sweeney Todd slit people's throats one after the other. After awhile Jyuudai comes out to put his cup in the sink and get a glass of water. Asuka nods back toward the living room.

"She's still out there?"

"She won't hurt them," Jyuudai says. Asuka shakes her head.

"I was just wondering if she was that interested."

"Yubel . . . doesn't watch movies like normal people do," he answers slowly, almost as though he hasn't much thought of it before. "It's more like . . . almost like she's trying to figure out what people here are like by listening to the stories we tell."

"What's she come up with so far?"

"That people on Earth are a bunch of unimaginative, sex-obsessed maniacal idiots who like destroying things, actually," Jyuudai admits. He sounds rather sheepish about it. "I think she gets a little homesick sometimes. But . . . "

"How do you help someone whose home is thousands of years in the past?" Asuka finishes for him, and he nods.  
"Pretty much." He takes his water and heads back to the living room. Asuka looks down at her sugar cookie recipe and sighs. The dough is easy to make, but that means she can lengthen her stay in the kitchen by perhaps five minutes more—if she's lucky. She divides the dough, rolls it out, wraps it in waxed paper, ties off the ends, and puts it in the refrigerator.

By the grace of some benevolent god, the movie ends just as she walks back into the living room. Johan is stirring against Fubuki's shoulder, finally sitting up and reaching one hand out, looking confused as it touches only thin air. Asuka realises with no small amount of amusement that he's looking for his alarm clock.

"It's only ten at night here, Johan," she tells him, and he blinks at her.

"Mmmnn?"

Fubuki chuckles. Johan stretches.

"I don't remember how it ended—"

"You fell asleep," Fubuki says. "You missed the entire last half."

Johan grumbles a little. "I liked it till then . . . "

"We can probably watch the rest again—"

"Not tonight we're not," Asuka says. "I reached my gore quota an hour ago."

Fubuki opens his mouth to protest and is interrupted by a loud, rhythmic rumbling noise. Asuka looks up, wondering if the pipes are about to burst, and then at Jyuudai. No, the pipes aren't making some odd noise—just the dragon.

Yubel is still kneeling on the floor, her head in Jyuudai's lap, eyes tightly shut, _purring_ as his fingers comb through her hair. She looks and sounds to Asuka like a giant winged housecat.

"Is she—?"

"Asleep," Jyuudai says. Asuka thinks she can hear amusement mixed in with the clear affection in his voice. "She won't usually purr if she's awake."

"Duel spirits purr?" Fubuki cranes his neck to look.

"I don't know if they do or not, but dragons do," Jyuudai answers. "Yubel isn't really a duel spirit."

"She's in a card," Fubuki says. Jyuudai shrugs.

"It's complicated." He runs his fingers through her hair again, almost cradling her head in his palm as he does, scratching her scalp lightly and drawing an even louder series of sounds before he goes back to simply stroking her hair and watching her sleep.

"I'm surprised she's sleeping with other people around," Asuka admits, and Jyuudai offers her a sunny smile.

"It's not so surprising when you think about it, really," he says. "This is probably the safest place in the world right now."

"The safest . . . ?"

"There are four components that make up the universe," Jyuudai says, and in the split second before he continues Asuka ponders how strange it is to hear a word like "components" out of Jyuudai's mouth before he continues. "Two are dark and two are light. One of each is creative and one of each is destructive, and all but one of them always have a living representative. Those three representatives are sitting in this room . . . and so is someone who's been affected by the fourth one. The Light of Destruction. By all of us being here all at the same time, we kind of . . . cancel each other out." Jyuudai shrugs. "We've essentially created a perfect isotonic environment over a few-mile radius."

"When did you start using words like 'isotonic'?" Fubuki asks. Jyuudai grins.

"Well, see, I spent a week in the eighth dimension, which is this really freaky place where a week is actually about eleven days long and you can do things like turning a basketball inside out without puncturing it first—"

"You know what, forget I asked."

"What are you getting her for Christmas?" Asuka asks, watching the sleeping dragon. With her head snuggled against Jyuudai's knees, eyes shut, wings draped loosely around his legs, it's almost hard to believe she came within seconds of being the cause of the destruction of all universes as their respective inhabitants know them. Jyuudai, on the other hand, jumps and then looks mildly chagrined.

"Shit. I didn't even think about that." He ponders the idea for a moment, then looks worried. "How would I even get her something without her knowing I was doing it?"

"I could take her card for an afternoon?" Johan offers. "It'd probably annoy the hell out of her, but . . . "

"You'd enjoy that too much," Jyuudai says, not without amusement. "But even if I don't have her card, her soul is part of mine. She's always with me."

"I could pick something out downtown," Asuka offers. "There are a few nice shops there and I have to try to get to the grocery store tomorrow anyway."

"Yeah, but . . . " Jyuudai looks uncomfortable. "Then it'd be from you, not me, wouldn't it?"

"Tell me what you'd like her to have and I can look for something," she answers. "It's your first Christmas together, isn't it?"

"The first one we're celebrating," Jyuudai confirms. "Last year we were in Taiwan and I didn't even realise it was Christmas until two days after it was over."

"You should have come to Trondheim," Johan says. "I'm always up for somebody to celebrate with." He reaches out to shut off the DVD menu, and the room fills with the unmistakeable jingle of a sing-songy Christmas commercial urging its viewers to buy little Bill or Sally that scooter that's all they really want this Christmas. Johan frowns at it, then glances out the window. "What do you suppose the temperature is?"

"About two below," Asuka answers. "It's snowy, but not all that cold. Why?"

"Am I going to bother anyone if I go for a walk?"

Fubuki raises his eyebrows. Asuka shakes her head.

"If you're going through campus I might actually go with you. Someone needs to do a room-check for the girls who are still here to see who's here and who's not."

"I can do it if you have a roster," Johan says. "I did it for my kids after a long weekend in October and I've got my ID tag with me."

Asuka smiles at him a little. "You're sure you want to go take a trip through Planet Female?"

"I don't believe in cooties."

Asuka and Fubuki both start laughing at exactly the same moment. Jyuudai chuckles. Yubel raises her head, looking a little irritable.

"I have the roster in here," Asuka says at last, leaning forward to open her briefcase. "If anybody asks, you're visiting faculty."

"No problem. Hey, Jyuudai, want to come?" Johan is already heading for the front door to put his shoes on, perhaps hoping to expend some energy and get onto Colorado time. Jyuudai shakes his head.

"I'm probably going to hit the sack soon, but thanks." He reaches for Yubel's hand to pull her to her feet. Asuka finds her roster clipboard and hands it to Johan. Fubuki yawns.

"Bed sounds like a great idea," he chips in. "Think I'm gonna call it a night, sis." He gives Asuka a one-armed squeeze as the front door closes. Then he nods to Jyuudai and ambles off down the short hallway.

Asuka looks at Jyuudai. Jyuudai looks at Asuka.

Both of them head for the kitchen.

* * *

"What do you think?" Asuka asks, as they sit together over mugs of tea. "I've never seen him stay that still for that long. Usually he's at least playing with a stress ball or something like that."

"All the answers you wanted were in his right hand," Yubel cuts in, and they both look at her. "I can't help you if you didn't see it for yourself."

"That was the arm he had over the back of the sofa," Jyuudai protests. "What's he supposed to be doing with that?"

"If 'having it over the back of the sofa' is as close as you can get, Jyuudai, I despair for the future of the human race." Yubel reaches for a piece of the orange peel in front of Jyuudai and nibbles it. "You need to learn to be more observant."

Asuka sighs and shakes her head and turns off the radio, pitched just low enough that the strains of sleigh bells ring-a-ling, ting-ting-ting-a-ling too can annoy her enough to take notice. "I feel like I almost had it and then missed it," she says. "I shouldn't have spent the entire last half in the kitchen."

"You didn't miss much," Jyuudai assures her. "That's one movie I don't think they could show on TV even back home."

"And Fubuki's going to want to watch it again tomorrow," she shudders. "Let's all hope they come out with something else sometime soon that isn't intended to break a world record for 'most fake blood used on a single movie set.'"

Jyuudai laughs, trying to keep his voice low. The front door opens, and Asuka hears the low jangle of her keys a few moments before Johan appears in the kitchen.

"Jamie Thompson's room mate said she changed her mind at the last minute when her boyfriend's family invited her to Florida and Darla Sullivan has a note on her whiteboard that she went home with LaTeesha and anyone who needs her can call her cell phone," he says, flipping a couple of the pages on the clipboard. "I'm guessing that's LaTeesha Morgan. Also, Beth DuBartell got permission from Tanya Cordell's room mate to use her bed over break, so she's in 149 instead of 147. Everybody else who's staying was hanging out in 214 having a pyjama party. I asked to do a check for alcohol after I did a headcount and they said no problem. They're up there watching Christmas specials and playing Twister now."

"Then as long as nobody has problems over break, they're set," Asuka says, breathing what sounds a little like a sigh of relief. "Good. Thank you, Johan."

"No problem. I wish my kids were that easy to work with," he adds. "Doing a contraband check on the boys' dorm is hell. I always end up coming out with two or three garbage bags full of stuff they're not supposed to have, and that's without asking the over-agers to lift the mattresses. I'm not sure I _want_ to know what some of them have stuffed under the box springs."

"I'm not sure I'd want to, either," Asuka agrees, taking the clipboard. Jyuudai laughs a little, then yawns. Johan pours a cup of tea for himself and adds sugar. Yubel finishes Jyuudai's orange peel and puts her arm around his shoulders. Johan takes a sip of his tea.

"Do you mind if I make a couple of phone calls tomorrow morning, actually?" he asks. "I have one student who's missing four assignments and one of my advisees had a family situation that took her out of school for six weeks."

"Not at all. I can take you over to my office if you want to use a landline," Asuka offers. Johan shakes his head.

"Both of them know my mobile number. I don't know if she'd pick up to a strange number, but he definitely won't. But thanks."

"Not a problem," she assures him as she puts her cup in the sink. "I'm going to call it a night."

"Me too," Jyuudai says. "Sleep good, okay?" He drains his cup before giving Johan a tight hug.

"You too. Don't let the dragons bite," Johan answers. Yubel gives him a _look_.

"Never on weeknights," she tells him, and disappears. Jyuudai snickers. Johan rolls his eyes.

"She's always got to have the last word, doesn't she?"

Asuka just shakes her head and slips out to the living room. Jyuudai follows her and catches her arm just before she can reach the hallway on the other side.

"Hey."

"Mm?" She looks up at him, aware in some back corner of her mind that he's grown since leaving school; not so very long ago, it was him looking up at her. Jyuudai shrugs and smiles, looking sheepish.

"I just wanted to say thanks. We don't get all that much time together." The smile flashes brighter. "You letting her be here . . . it means a lot."

"What else would I do?" she asks him, not really expecting an answer. "I invited everyone here to be together, not to keep people apart."

"Yeah, but . . . I know you guys really don't have any reason to do each other any favours. It's nice to get the chance to just be . . . us. If I go to a movie or something, we're together, sure, but you see everyone else sitting together holding hands and it's . . . " Jyuudai shrugs.

"Not the same," Asuka finishes, and he nods.

"Yeah. It's nice to be with people I can actually tell about her. My parents aren't too wild about it."

"If you're happy, they should be happy for you," Asuka says. "I am."

Jyuudai pulls her into a hug so tight she thinks she can feel her ribs move. "Thanks."

"For doing what any real friend would do? Don't be silly."

The smile flashes again. "Sleep good, okay?"

Asuka resists the urge to correct him. There are far more important things to worry about than Jyuudai's grammar, like the task she set herself this afternoon and still has every intention of accomplishing.

"You too."


	3. December 23

**Title**: A Winter's Tale  
**Chapter Title**: December 23  
**Author**: Nina/**technicolornina**  
**Fandom**: Yu-Gi-Oh!: GX  
**Genre**: Humour/Romance/General  
**Pairing/Characters**: Jyuudai, Yubel, Asuka, Fubuki, Johan  
**Word Count**: 5 895  
**Spoilers:** Post-series.  
**Story Rating**: PG-13  
**Chapter Rating**: PG-13  
**Story Summary**: The folks with nowhere else to go all gather at Asuka's for Christmas. It transpires that Yubel doesn't know what Christmas _is_, Asuka's pile of term papers just keeps growing, and something odd is going on with Fubuki and Johan . . . who just wants to get away from jet lag and Edo Phoenix.  
**Chapter Summary**: Johan makes a phone call. Asuka is up far too early. Yubel is her usual self, complete with snarky advice. Johan fails epically at explaining Christmas.  
**Notes**: Sorry this took so long! With half a page left to write, my computer decided to stop working for two days (for some reason he started working again when I put him on the floor, and now he's fine. Whatever makes him happy, I guess?).  
**Feedback**: There may be something out there that's better than a review containing concrit, but if there is, I haven't found it yet. So if you have two minutes and you wouldn't mind? Please? Arigatou. (And concrit is cool. Flames are not.)  
**Special Thanks/Dedications**: This chapter is for Peach, who inspired much of it.

_I don't want a lot for Christmas, there's just one thing I need  
I don't care about the presents underneath the Christmas tree  
I just want you for my own, more than you could ever know  
Make my wish come true--all I want for Christmas is you._

--"All I Want For Christmas Is You," Mariah Carey 

* * *

"Yes, I know that," Asuka hears Johan's voice say from the living room before she even gets out of the hallway. She looks down at the robe and slippers she's thrown over her pyjamas, considers getting dressed, and decides it can wait until after breakfast. If Johan can't handle her bare ankles, she decides, he has far more problems than the student he's presumably on the phone with. "But you still—"

Asuka walks into the living room just in time to see Johan swing his legs off the couch and sit up into the circle of light cast by the lamp on the end table. "You still have to turn it in even if you're just there for attendance points. If you didn't do the work, I can't mark you as present. I don't have proof of your attenda—"

Asuka watches as a chagrined expression appears on his face. Then she heads into the kitchen to make coffee. She's still half-asleep—the kitchen clock tells her she's woken up at five to six, even earlier than she usually gets up for her first class—and Johan, who probably got up early to make his phone calls to his students, doesn't look like he's faring too much better.

"I know you—Edo, I don't care," Johan says, just as Asuka sees Fubuki come into the kitchen. "You need to do the work just like everyone else or you fail the class. It's that simple." A pause. "If you'd done it when it was assigned, it would have taken you forty minutes at the outside maximum." Another pause. Asuka takes advantage of the Redi-Cup on her coffeepot to take Johan some coffee. "Edo, for every assignment you get I get to correct a hundred and twenty of them, plus whatever's assigned to the first and second years. I have to write lesson plans for five different classes, complete the equivalent of class time and a half in office hours—which is close to twelve hours for me this semester, by the way—I'm also in the pros, doing all of this without a secretary, and somehow I seem to be doing okay. You can find the time to write three double-spaced pages on the strengths and weaknesses of a card archetype."

Asuka hands him his coffee, and he makes a grateful face up at her before shaking the phone over his head and bringing it back to his ear. "Facts are simple, Edo. You're missing four—no, five assignments, because you didn't turn in your deck profile page, either. Attendance is only twenty percent of your grade in my class and with the five you're missing, you currently have a—" he leans forward and taps his mouse to take the computer out of power-save mode—"a 67%. I'm accepting late assignments up through the fifth, because I have to have grades in by the twelfth. You need an 80 to graduate and if you have all five in my e-mail by the fifth you can still clear that by six points. Or I can fail you and you can come back in the fall and take Ulvaeus and I promise you, Edo, I had him in my second year, you do not want to take him if this is going to be your attitude toward your schoolwork, because then you'll be back for _another_ year." He pauses. Looks at his gradebook. Sighs. "Put it all together and you can still be done with it in three hours max. I need it by the fifth or the best you can do is declare pass/fail and still not graduate."

He listens again, then shuts the phone and sighs. Asuka puts a hand on his shoulder.

"Problem student?"

"Like you wouldn't believe," Johan agrees. "You'd think I asked him to write me a master's thesis in two days with the bullshit he's giving me for why he shouldn't have to do it. If he took all the time he's put into complaining about it and used it to do the work—"

"He'd be done already," Asuka finishes with him. "I know the type."

"Edo Phoenix?" Fubuki asks, leaning in the kitchen doorway with coffee in one hand and a slice of toast in the other. "Shouldn't he be graduated already?"

Johan shakes his head. "He needs two more classes to make up his attendance credits. Lucky me, I'm the only one at all six schools offering either one of them this year." He squeezes his eyes shut, then opens them and looks back up at Asuka. "What are you doing up so early? I thought we were all being total sloths this week."

"Well, you certainly aren't," she shoots back. "Force of habit, I guess." Then she yawns. Fubuki pops the last bite of his toast in his mouth and crosses the room to give his sister a hug.

"Go back to sleep for an hour, sis. I'll make breakfast."

Asuka decides it's not worth arguing and nods against his shoulder. "Don't blow up my kitchen."

"Come on, Asuka, give me a little more credit than that," he protests. "Just because I forgot to take the foil off in the microwave _one time_—"

"And didn't get it out until the entire thing was completely dead and about to catch on fire," Asuka breaks in. Fubuki shrugs.

"Cafeteria microwaves shouldn't be trusted anyway. Go on. Sleep." He pecks her forehead just above her eye, and Asuka thinks—as she has done before and will no doubt do again—of mother hens. "I get breaks a lot more than you do."

Asuka gives her brother a perfunctory squeeze around the waist—any tighter, and she knows it will wake her up—and heads back to bed as Johan first yawns, then flips open his phone to dial again. 

* * *

"These waffles are amazing."

"Fubuki made breakfast," Asuka says, cutting a bite-sized square off her own breakfast as Jyuudai packs it in with his usual enthusiasm. "Thank him."

Fubuki waves a hand from the counter before Jyuudai can try to repeat himself with his mouth full. "Anybody who can pay attention and follow a recipe can cook. It's not that hard."

Johan swallows a slice of peach and reaches for the butter. "It feels weird to be eating waffles for breakfast instead of lunch."

"That's the great thing about stuff like this, you can eat it anytime," Fubuki chips in. "Americans who go to Europe probably think it's weird to get waffles for lunch instead of breakfast." He finishes off the last bite of his breakfast and washes it down with a large swig of milk. "What do you need to get done today, sis?"

"Grocery shopping. And I should do some grading this afternoon." She finishes her own waffle and picks up her plate to put in the sink. "If you don't mind making lunch I could probably run a few errands and get everything out of the way."

"How much is the newspaper here?" Johan asks. Asuka gives him a quizzical look.

"For a weekday edition? Fifty cents. Maybe seventy-five. Less than a dollar. Why?"

"I wanted to see if there's anywhere around here doing a midnight Mass tomorrow. I didn't see any Catholic churches on the way in."

"You're Catholic?" Jyuudai breaks in, and it's Johan's turn to look quizzical.

"Yeah? So?"

Jyuudai shrugs. "Just seems like a weird choice, that's all."

Johan also shrugs. "Old habits die hard, I guess. I was raised in the Church." He makes a horrible face. "I was so glad when they told me I was too old to be an altar boy anymore because my voice changed—"

"What's an altar boy?"

Johan swivels around so he can see Fubuki without twisting his head to an angle best practiced by owls. "A boy between ten and fourteen or so who lights the candles on the altar during High Mass. In the Church I went to we had to chant the aves while we walked up the aisle and altar boys got shoehorned into the choir a lot because the congregation was pretty small."

"You sing?"

Johan shakes his head. "I might be able to carry a tune in a paper sack, but I wouldn't know what to do with it when I got where I was going anymore." He spears his last slice of peach and nibbles it. "Anyway, I usually only go at Christmas. Sometimes at Easter, but not always." He swallows the last of the fruit and looks thoughtful. "I'm not sure I'd even be able to take Communion if I go tonight. I haven't gone to confession in . . . " He pauses and ticks something off on his fingers. "Seven months?"

Jyuudai snorts into his own milk. "Good job."

"It just gets really old when you have to go in and say 'Bless me Father for I have sinned, I've had lustful thoughts about other men' every single time."

" . . . okay, good point."

"I can get a newspaper," Asuka tells him. "But there's a Catholic church about four blocks away. Some of the students go there. It's the Church of St. Therese." Johan smiles.

"Little Therese. She's my favourite."

"Is there more than one Therese?" Fubuki asks. Johan rolls his eyes.

"I think there's like a dozen. Do yourself a favour. Don't ever try to learn all the saints. You're fighting a losing battle and half of them have the same name as the other half. I swear if they canonize one more Saint John I'm going to go crazy, and I stopped with the original eleven."

Fubuki laughs. Asuka runs water over the dishes in the sink. Jyuudai stands up and stretches.

"Do you want me go with you?"

Asuka shakes her head. "I can handle it. It's just a few errands. I need to pick up some things for a couple of the students who stayed. We're having a community dinner because the cafeteria is going to be closed on Christmas. But if you know anything about sugar cookies you could bake some of the dough I've got in the refrigerator."

"Sure thing," Jyuudai agrees. Johan runs a hand over his face.

"Do you mind if I call the airport first, and is there anywhere on campus I can get a razor? I look like a bum."  
"Go ahead, the student store in Main—Fubuki knows where it is—and no, you don't." Asuka pulls on her sweater, already planning five steps ahead. If she plans to finish everything she wants to get done, she knows, she's going to have to hurry and she'll need every spare minute she can get. She heads off to get her purse and coat while Johan calls, already making a mental list of the things she doesn't want to write down on the paper with her grocery needs . . . just in case someone else happens to look at it.

She takes her mobile off its charger, puts her keys in her pocket, slips into her shoes, and comes back into the kitchen for her grocery list. Johan's shaking his head.

"Still nothing."

"They'll find it," Asuka assures him. "It's just the storm on top of Christmas. They'll have everything back to normal in a day or two."

"I'm just worried about the stuff I had in there for you guys," Johan says. "I called the American TSA before I left the school and they said anything wrapped had to go in checked luggage. I don't want it lost."

"Better to lose the luggage than lose _you_," she answers. "I need to get out of here. I should be back by six."

The others bid her goodbye, and she sets out. 

* * *

The flat seems empty when Asuka opens the door—far earlier than she planned, as it happened. Things worked out the best way they possibly could have. It's still only four o'clock; she's even in time to make dinner, if someone hasn't started something less aromatic than the smell of fresh-baked sugar cookies that meets her as soon as she steps inside. The place appears deserted, but she has the feeling she shouldn't trust her first impression—a feeling justified when she hears the patter of water in the bathroom. Someone is in the shower.

She slips out of her shoes and hangs up her keys, then focuses on the bare foot hanging over the arm of the sofa. The leg above it appears bare, but the foot is far too small to be Fubuki's. Asuka glances into the kitchen. No Jyuudai, even though the place is certainly warm enough to indicate the oven is on.

She approaches the sofa quickly, worried that Jyuudai might have fallen asleep with a cookie sheet still in the oven. Instead she sees Johan, very clearly asleep, his hair still tousled and damp from the shower. Asuka can't help smiling; he has cuffed the jeans he borrowed from Fubuki, but the bright blue dress shirt has only been buttoned halfway—and if the position of his hands is any indication, he fell asleep while doing up the top. The shower turns off, and as it does she sees Jyuudai in the kitchen doorway, beckoning her in.

"I got through what you had chilled and did a batch of that peanut-butter stuff you had bookmarked," Jyuudai tells her as she sets a multitude of grocery bags on the table. "I think they turned out okay."

Asuka picks up a sugar cookie and bites it. "Okay? Jyuudai, these are amazing!"

"I'm glad at least one person in this room has some concept of timing baked pastries," a dry voice says from behind her. "The first trayful weren't fit for anything but the dustbin after this one—" she gestures toward Jyuudai—"stopped to watch something on the television about a snowman who delivers gifts to good children on Christmaseven."

Jyuudai grins sheepishly. "Yubel kind of helped a little."

Asuka starts laughing, and it's then that Fubuki comes in with his hair swopped up in a messy pullback and a towel around his shoulders to catch the drips.

"You're home early."

"I finished sooner than I thought I would. Do you mind helping me put these away?" She nods her head off toward the table and sees Fubuki's eyes flicker over her shoulder to what she assumes must be Yubel, still sitting at the table.

"Let me get some slippers on."

"No rush as long as we get everything frozen put away in the next five or ten minutes," she tells him. "I wouldn't mind sitting down for a minute anyway. The grocery store was absolutely mad." She pulls out a pitcher of green tea and pours a glass, then hoists it in silent offer to the men in her kitchen. Jyuudai nods and pulls out a glass, which she fills. Then she sees him carry it to Yubel, and winces mentally as she sits down. It's easy to forget someone so silent that even when she moves there's no sound.

She sips at her tea, grateful to be off her feet for a minute or two. The timer goes off, and Yubel rises gracefully to her feet. Jyuudai opens the oven and pulls out the rack, turning up the bottom of a cookie. Yubel shakes her head.

"The inside will still be uncooked. Look—" she points with her more human hand. "The tops aren't even hardened."

"They're almost totally raw, then," Jyuudai says, and Yubel nods. "Five more minutes?"

"Five and check. I'd more likely say ten—Jyuudai, your heat's been turned off." She reaches for the knob to turn the oven back on, scrabbles at it with her claws, and then makes a face before letting Jyuudai turn it. "It was set to three hundred and fifty degrees of heat."

"And it's down to—one-ninety?" Jyuudai looks startled. "When did it get turned off?"

"I haven't the faintest, but it certainly explains a great deal."

"It does that sometimes," Asuka tells him. "Something in the knob tension, or something like that. They're supposed to either fix it or replace it before flat inspections at the end of January, so I'm trying not to worry about it too much. You just have to keep an eye on it."

Jyuudai nods and resets the timer. Asuka stretches her arms and reaches for a bag. Jyuudai follows her suit, putting a few bags of frozen peas in the freezer. Yubel sips her tea and watches them, her eyes flickering over Jyuudai's shoulder to Fubuki as he comes back in, this time with his hair down and a pair of slippers on his feet.

They empty the bags in a companionable silence broken only by the radio—_silver and gold, silver and gold, how do you measure its worth?—_and then, after a few minutes, the timer. Yubel gets up and waves a hand at Jyuudai to continue his task. Fubuki watches her out of the corner of his eye, and Asuka sees his eyes widen when Yubel pulls out the wire baking rack without a potholder.

"You don't burn?"

She gives him a long-suffering look over her shoulder. "Someone with a copy of _Beowulf_ stuffed in his bag is asking me this question?"

"Hey, I was just asking—"

"Foolish." She examines the bottom of a cookie, then pulls the tray out of the oven and, as she stands up, shakes her head. "It would take fires far hotter than any on Earth to harm me. I would have expected you to know. The old poems and songs of this world, before the tales of those elder days were lost, are far more accurate than you might believe. In Delain we told of Bya-Ryf of Gyt-ly-da—Kryshtik, the bel mines, in my time—who slew a dragon that took up residence at the bottom of the mine and was disrupted by a man who sought treasure to placate a monster living at the bottom of the sea. I've little doubt the story crossed from one world to the other. Is there more dough?"

"I think that was the last of it," Jyuudai says. "We can make more later if we need it—"

"We will," Asuka promises. "But let's leave it for now. Johan's still sleeping?"

"He was when I came through," Fubuki answers. "He was up around four this morning. Asked me if I'd wake him in an hour if he took a nap. I thought he meant in the bed."

"I think he planned to and then didn't make it as far as the bed," Jyuudai tells him. "He came out here for a glass of water first."

"Should we make dinner, or just wait for him to wake up?" Asuka asks them. Jyuudai shrugs. Fubuki balls up the plastic bags and puts them in the keeper behind the pantry door.

"I say make dinner and let him finish his nap. We should get done cooking about the time he wakes up." He grins at Asuka in a way that speaks of being up to no good. "Or we could just leave you two ladies to it."

Yubel raises an eyebrow. Asuka just gives him her usual Fubuki-what-are-you-doing-now look. "Or 'we two ladies' could let you do it, since you seem to be the only one who was relaxing today."

"You can use the bonding time. Talk about what you're getting Jyuudai for Christmas, that should liven things up. C'mon." Fubuki slings an arm around Jyuudai's shoulders. Asuka shifts to put herself between him and the door.

"Would you mind telling me what on _earth_ you're doing?"

The grin on his face is one she has seen before, and it can mean only one thing when combined with what he says next: "Just seemed like you two were getting along pretty well."

Jyuudai misses the implication, but Yubel picks it up, and her "Excuse me!" is almost perfectly overlapped by Asuka's "Fubuki, she has a boyfriend!" The grin doesn't leave his face.

"People do it all the time, sis. Hey, Jyuudai, do you care?"

Asuka cuts him off before he can answer. "The answer is _no_."

"Sis—"

"I'm tired of you doing this!" She turns to look at him more fully, her entire face flaming scarlet in embarrassment and shame. On some level she registers the pantry door opening and shutting behind her, but most of her mind is on a level of anger and hurt, where such sounds do not exist. "I'm _me_, Fubuki, not Queen Belle at the ball! Why do you keep acting like you think the only way I'll be worth anything is by having children instead of teaching them?"

Fubuki shakes his head. "Asuka, that isn't true."

"How is it not true? Every time I see you, you're trying to get me to date someone I barely know."

"You know, sis, you need to lighten up." Asuka opens her mouth, and Fubuki holds up a hand. "I kind of figured if you went for girls you would have told me by now. I was just kidding with you."

"_This_ time. But—" Fubuki puts a finger on her lips and takes her hands.

"You're my kid sister and I love you, Asuka. Being in love . . . " he shrugs. "There's nothing like it. I'd like you to know what it's like, just once. You deserve to not miss out on it. I want you to be happy."

"I am happy," she answers. "I'm doing what I've wanted to do since I was twelve, Fubuki. I don't want the same things you do. I shouldn't have to."

"_Are_ you happy, Asuka?" he asks her, and she nods.

"I love it here. Watching kids leave here as adults full of potential they never knew they had—there's nothing like that, either." She lets go of his hands to put her own hands on his shoulders. "If I ever do meet someone I like enough to consider spending the rest of my life with, you'll be the first to know. In the meantime, can you just be happy that I'm happy?"

He looks down at her for a long moment, and she thinks suddenly of him leaving for Duel Academia so very many years before—the way he smiled and put his hands on her shoulders and told her to behave, and how none of it really sank in until he walked up the gangplank onto the boat that would take him away from the dock in Tokyo. Then he does smile, and nods at her—slowly, but it is a nod.

"I don't get it," he tells her. "But if you're happy, then I'm happy for you."

She stands on her toes to hug him, arms locked tight around his neck. "Thank you, Fubuki."

He kisses her cheek. "That's what big brothers are for, Asuka. We protect our little sisters and just when you think you can't take it anymore we do something totally awesome every ten years or so." He grins. "Or at least most brothers do. I think I have 'awesome' pretty well covered most of the time."

Asuka laughs into his ear, and then she turns her head to plant a kiss of her own as far up his cheek as she can reach. "Just do me a favour, would you? Worry about finding yourself a girlfriend before you worry about finding me one."

There's a pause before he speaks, and when he does there is something different in his voice she can't quite place. She wonders if it has anything to do with Johan, who pads sleepily past them both and makes for the coffeemaker—although really, she thinks, Fubuki is never shy about his love life, so why it should be an issue is beyond her.

"I'm working on it." His eyes flicker back to hers, and he smiles. "Just don't count out all your options, sis, okay? You never know. The perfect guy for you could be right around the corner."

"Fubu_ki_!" she groans. And then, because she can't help herself, she joins him when he starts to laugh. 

* * *

"There's midnight Mass tomorrow starting at eleven o'clock," Johan says from behind the paper Asuka purchased in town. "At the church you mentioned kids going to. Is it a problem if I go?"

"No, of course not," Asuka tells him. "If you want to go—"

"Midnight is twelve o'clock, not eleven," Yubel cuts in. Johan gives her a _look_.

"Thanks, Yubel. What would I do without you?"

"Shrivel up in some dark corner and die from lack of brain cells."

Johan makes a hideous face and turns back to Asuka. "I should be back by twelve-thirty. I don't think it should take that long to walk four blocks, but who knows what the sidewalks are going to look like."

"If any of the kids are going you can probably get a ride back with one of the people who goes there," she suggests. Johan shakes his head.

"I don't mind walking it if they're not. I just hope it's okay if I show up in blue jeans."

"Is there some kind of dress code for a church?" Fubuki asks. Johan shrugs.

"There isn't in Norway. But it's kind of funny how seriously Americans take religion sometimes." He yawns and stretches. Yubel stares suspiciously at the newspaper.

"What are you leaving the house in the middle of the night for anyway?"

"Midnight Mass. Which is at eleven o'clock." He peers at her over his paper. "It's for Christmas."

"What purpose does it serve?"

"It's a celebration of the immaculate birth of Jesus Christ, born without sin of an immaculately conceived mother, Mary." Johan makes a face. "That's the official version I learned in Confirmation class. Really it's a Roman holiday that got appropriated by the Church sometime in the first century so pagans would stop holding sex festivals."

"Then it's the birth of a god?"

"Not 'a' god, _the_ God. The Christian religion only has one. And that's what people take it as now. That's not what it always was."

"But if this Christ of yours is your god, who created him?"

"God and a virgin," Johan answers. "God and Jesus are actually the same person."

"Untouched women can't conceive," Yubel points out. "It's impossible."

"Hey, I didn't make this stuff up, it was around for two thousand years before I was born." Johan folds the paper and stretches. "Before that people celebrated Saturnalia and the festival of Dionysis and basically you had sex and watched plays for a week."

"And drank wine," Fubuki puts in. "I remember Dionysis from the Arts and Humanities class we used to have to take."

Johan ignores the part about the wine and puts the paper on the table. "But if it's Christmas you're interested in, it depends on the part of the world you're in. It's gotten really secularized. I think in Japan it's actually a lovers' holiday, isn't it?"

"Usually," Asuka agrees. "We celebrated it as a family, but most people I knew growing up didn't."

Yubel grumbles a bit and curls up next to Jyuudai, who reaches up to stroke her hair. Johan's mobile rings, and he pulls it out long enough to see the screen and moan a bit at it. "Oh, come _on_, really, it's already Christmas Eve where you are . . . hello, Edo."

Yubel watches Johan argue again with Edo from her place on the floor, eyes flickering back and forth between Fubuki curled up casually in one far corner of the sofa and Johan curled up in the other. Then she bends down to murmur something in Jyuudai's ear. He smiles up at her and murmurs back. Asuka stretches her arms over her head and yawns.

"I'm exhausted," she says, trying to look as though this is actually true. "I think I'm going to get a shower and head to bed."

"It's only ten-thirty!" Fubuki protests, and Asuka shakes her head.

"Doesn't matter. I have a really full day tomorrow and I should really get the sleep." She kisses his cheek and squeezes Johan's shoulder—he is still arguing with Edo, this time over whether or not a letter from Edo's manager can be considered a waiver for his homework—and then sits down to hug Jyuudai before pausing and leaning over to put a friendly arm around Yubel's shoulders, as well.

Yubel tenses and goes completely still. Then Jyuudai caresses her arm and she relaxes marginally, although she doesn't relax completely until Asuka lets go and stands up.

"Good night," she says cheerily to the room, and disappears down the hallway to shower.

Behind her Jyuudai and Yubel sit under the Christmas tree—Yubel now demanding to know why anyone would cut down a perfectly good tree and cover it in glass bulbs—and Fubuki and Johan still sit curled into the couch corners, paying noticeable attention neither to the couple on the floor, nor to each other. 

* * *

Fubuki is sitting in the kitchen with a last cup of tea, staring out into a snowstorm, when Yubel appears in the doorway.

"Jyuudai asked me to speak to you."

Fubuki looks up. Yubel comes into the kitchen and sits down.

"I loathe to say it, but you and I seem to have quite a lot in common."

Fubuki stares at her quizzically. "What?"

"This holiday of yours," she continues. "It matters not which tradition its celebrants adhere to—at its bottom its main principle is love, is it not?"

He shrugs. "I guess you could say that."

"And this is what you choose to celebrate and pursue with your own life."

"There are a lot of worse things I could do," Fubuki answers, wondering if perhaps she'll get to her point and let him go to bed.

"Indeed," she agrees. "Then why have you not spoken to him?"

"What—"

"Jyuudai sees, but has yet to learn how to observe," Yubel tells him. "Your sister sees but has yet to comprehend. I—I, and my entire being—are made to observe and comprehend." She takes an orange from the bowl in the middle of Asuka's table and pulls off a piece of rind. "I told Jyuudai the answer to the conundrum he and she have set for themselves was in your right hand, but neither of them bothered to follow it through."

"You decided I like Johan because I don't have an engagement ring?" Fubuki asks, honestly perplexed. Yubel shakes her head.

"When you sat down last night to watch your film, he fell asleep against your shoulder, and you embraced him." She nibbles the rind. "In the last two days you've gone out of your way to put yourself in his mind, taken care to be kind to him, but protested sharing his bed—perhaps because, as a man of integrity aware of his preferences, you did not wish to impugn his honour among his friends. Why have you not bothered simply speaking to him?"

Fubuki looks down at the cheerful lacquer-blue mug with its half-finished tea inside and ponders the question, resisting his first urge to play dumb and tell her he needs to sleep. At last he shakes his head. "Telling somebody something like that isn't something you should just _do_. Especially if you don't see them all that often. I wanted to see him again first. And pick a decent place. But that doesn't mean—"

"You changed your mind?" She considers the orange peel, then swallows whole what remains of the piece in her hand. "Does this have something to do with your suggestion that your sister might for some reason find me a suitable mate?"

"My family comes first."

"Ah." She peels off another bit of the orange rind. "Then because of a hasty remark, perhaps a comment on my physical status or on your state of mind in attempting to matchmake her with someone taken whom she barely knows—"

"I was kidding around," he protests. "That's—"

"—you intend to give up your plan because you believe she would shun you, even though her protest had nothing to do with my sex and everything to do with whether or not I was already spoken for," she continues, riding easily right over him. "Don't change the subject."

"I don't think she'd 'shun' me, I just think it wouldn't be a good idea."

"And I think you're being a fool."

"Look, I have to be careful, okay?" Fubuki glares at her over the top of his mug. "Actors still get hired no matter how weird they get as long as they've got the talent, but whatever I do reflects on her, too. Anybody with Internet access who gives enough of a damn to find out knows I have a sister and they'll compare her to me even though we're doing two totally different things. It shouldn't have to be that way, but it is. I don't want her to get in trouble because of me."

"Has it occurred to you in your—admirable, I grant—concern for your sister that the third person in this grouping _is_ a teacher? One, I might add, who isn't the least shy about his preferences. He tells the truth when asked. And though the school itself might be a different one, the hiring criteria for all of the schools in this group are almost certainly the same."

Fubuki stares over his cup. No—it has not yet sunk in for him that the heartbroken boy he found nearly catatonic on the beach after Jyuudai's disappearance has grown older and up, into the same professional shoes Asuka seemed to consider it her life's duty to fill. Yubel raises her—eyebrow? It doesn't look like hair, more like just more scales to him—on one side.

"Acting hastily in fear is as bad as acting hastily in anger or love, if not worse," she tells him. "Your fear for your sister—who is, I should tell you, a woman perfectly capable of taking care of herself—has blinded you to the truth of the path you've chosen." She takes another bite of orange peel and swallows it, her wings flaring a little in simple, almost childish pleasure as she does. "In hesitating you have gone against everything you say you stand for, and for no other reason than one that truly does a disservice to your sibling. If she was so very concerned with a matter of private preference she would never have befriended him."

Fubuki looks down at his mug again, then back up at her. "I hate telling you this—"

"But I'm right," she finishes for him. "I know."

"How does Jyuudai stand you?" he asks, a little shocked when her answer begins with a deep, genuinely amused laugh.

"Not without his own share of asking the same," she tells him. "I'd advise you—not on my own behalf, but Jyuudai's—to think hard before you choose to simply let go."

Then she is gone, vanished into thin air with her half-eaten orange in her hand, and there is no sound in the deserted late-night kitchen but the clock on the wall.


	4. December 24

**Title**: A Winter's Tale  
**Chapter Title**: December 24  
**Author**: Nina/**TechnicolorNina**  
**Fandom**: Yu-Gi-Oh!: GX  
**Genre**: Humour/Romance/General  
**Pairing/Characters**: Jyuudai, Yubel, Asuka, Fubuki, Johan  
**Word Count**: 6 624  
**Spoilers:** Post-series.  
**Story Rating**: PG-13  
**Chapter Rating**: PG-13  
**Story Summary**: The folks with nowhere else to go all gather at Asuka's for Christmas. It transpires that Yubel doesn't know what Christmas _is_, Asuka's pile of term papers just keeps growing, and something odd is going on with Fubuki and Johan . . . who just wants to get away from jet lag and Edo Phoenix.  
**Chapter Summary**: Fubuki makes a decision. Asuka grades papers. Johan and Fubuki try to cook. Oh, and there's a duel for once. Kind of.  
**Notes**: None  
**Feedback**: There may be something out there that's better than a review containing concrit, but if there is, I haven't found it yet. So if you have two minutes and you wouldn't mind? Please? Arigatou. (And concrit is cool. Flames are not.)  
**Special Thanks/Dedications**: This chapter is dedicated to **Higuchimon, Seda,** and **Lydia**, who kindly provided the absolutely atrocious examples of sub-par term papers that you will find in this chapter.

_

* * *

I don't want a lot for Christmas  
There is just one thing I need  
I don't care about the presents  
Underneath the Christmas tree  
I just want you for my own  
More than you could ever know  
Make my wish come true  
All I want for Christmas is you._ ~ "All I Want For Christmas Is You," Mariah Carey

* * *

"Johan, please tell me I'm not the only one with students like this," Asuka sighs. Johan looks up from an e-mail.

"Hm?"

"These kids," Asuka says. "I ask them to write four pages on a cohesive deck and I get 'these monsters work really well together because their all cute and cuddly. No one will be able to withstand my super cute deck!'" She slaps her pen down on the paper and brushes her fringe off her face. "What does that have to do with how the monsters work with the traps and spells? How do you even grade that?"

"Zero," Johan answers promptly. "Kid didn't complete the assignment."

"I can't _fail_ her!" Asuka gives him a shocked look. "She wrote the four pages, she just—"

"—didn't do what you asked of her, which is the same thing as not doing it at all," Johan interrupts. "Give her a zero and she won't do it again. I do."

"She'll fail the class."

"Not your problem." He glares at his e-mail. "Unless you happen to have an international celebrity in your class who thinks he can get through school on his looks."

Asuka smiles at him, just a little mischief lingering at the corners of her mouth. "He can't?"

"Not in my class. I distrust blue-eyed men on principle." He looks up at her, and Asuka makes a face when she sees the mischievous, teasing light in his eyes to match the barest edge of a grin still lingering on her mouth. "You should know better than to suggest something that unprincipled, Professor Tenjouin."

Asuka starts laughing. Her pen slides off her papers onto the floor, and she leans over to pick it up. Johan eyes the stack of papers.

"Want help?"

She looks down at the papers. "I don't know," she admits. "I know it's probably just a case of combined senioritis and holiday fever, but—"

"That doesn't exempt them from doing the assignment. My History II kids got holiday homework and half of them already have it turned in online. If you show them you mean business, they'll buckle down and do it. It's really that easy." There is a buzz, and he reaches into the pocket of his borrowed jeans and pulls out his phone to shut off without even looking at it. Then he glances at the screen and sighs. "On Christmas Eve. Come on."

"Edo?"

"Edo," he agrees. "Come on, pass them over. You've got to have something better than 'my manager says' in there somewhere."

She finally agrees, cutting her stack in half and giving him the ones from the bottom. Johan takes one of her pens, then starts methodically correcting spelling errors. Then he stops and blinks at the page.

"Asuka? How heavily do you grade on spelling and grammar?"

"It depends on how bad it is."

"Apparently . . . ah . . ." He flicks back to the first page. "Jason Cooper thinks 'trap card' is spelled T-R-O-P."

Asuka lets out a sound that is not exactly a groan. "Please tell me you're joking."

"He hasn't figured out yet that if you're using 'them' it needs to come after a plural, either." He sighs and shakes his head. "English is my third language and I could still do better than this. When I was ten. Before I was dueling native speakers."

Asuka holds out her hand. "May I see?"

"I'm not sure you want to." He hands her the paper all the same. Asuka looks at it and sighs as her eyes light first on the sentence "that makes it hard to draw any strong monster, and also then when you do draw them you cant summon them since you don't have any low-level ones out."

"I don't know what to do with this."

"I can tell you what I'd do."

"Fail him?"

"And put it in the requirements for the next paper that if you don't run a spelling and grammar check, your grade gets lowered accordingly." He picks up the next paper in the pile. "This one looks like it might be better. 'The most important thing to remember when structuring a cohesive deck is that intuitive strategy is not always the best strategy to use. For example, some monsters do damage to the player whose field they sit on, but it may be possible with a good combination of traps and spells to place the monster on the opponent's field so the damage effect is their penalty instead of your own.'" He pauses, then offers it to her. "Want one that's actually decent?"

She reaches out to take it. "Thanks—"

There is a loud thump from the hallway, and then Asuka's gratitude is interrupted by several hundred pounds of dragon and world savior hitting the floor just inside the living room door. Johan scrambles to his feet and yanks out his deck, reaching for the duel disk Asuka stowed under the end table. Then Jyuudai starts laughing.

"No fair tickling, Yubel, come on!"

Asuka stares as Jyuudai tries to roll over and finds himself blocked by the horned edge of a wing. He ducks beneath and Yubel tries to make a turn under her own leg, only to find herself pounced on from behind and subjected to revenge-tickling. She makes a strange sound that seems to be part hiss, part squeal, and part speech, and then the two of them roll over twice and come to rest against the wall, Jyuudai pinning Yubel's wrists above her head with his hands while she purrs and tries to squirm out from beneath, her wing bent up against the baseboard. He sits up to let her go and then offers a sheepish grin to the pair on the couch.

"Hi, guys."

Yubel draws her legs to her chest, still purring and now with her face a much darker shade than it normally appears. Johan grins at her. Asuka glances at him. Yubel catches sight of his grin and hisses at him. Johan makes a hideous face and hisses back at her before answering.

"Same to you."

Jyuudai stares up at the couch. "How do you do that?"

The grin gets wider. "It's this thing with your tongue—"

"Shut. Up." Yubel folds a wing around Jyuudai and glares, the effect spoiled somewhat by the deep rumbles still coming from somewhere in the region of her chest. Johan's expression doesn't change when he speaks.

"All it really takes is practice."

Yubel starts to get to her feet. Jyuudai puts a hand on her arm.

"Come on, Johan, quit it. She hasn't done anything to you. Lately."

Johan makes a face and picks up the next paper in his pile, muttering something mostly unintelligible about mating season. Jyuudai makes a face at him in return, then turns his attention to Asuka.

"Is there anywhere we can go outside for a couple of hours? Or like outside?"

"There's the gym, if you just want somewhere to run around," she suggests. "It's supposed to be locked over break, but I have a key for it."

Jyuudai smiles his usual sunny grin. "That'd be great."

"Make sure you lock it again when you leave," she says. "I need to get through these and then I need to go help—"

"Sis? Do you have any eggs?"

"Behind the pineapple under the rice I made for sushi."

"Is that rice even any good anymore?"

"Probably not." Asuka rubs at her eyes with the heel of her hand. "Don't use the carrots. I need those."

"I wasn't planning to." Fubuki disappears back into the kitchen. Asuka calls after him.

"Can you see if it needs thrown out?"

There is a long pause before Fubuki speaks again.

" . . . . Asuka, how long has this been in here, exactly?"

"A week?"

"Is that why it all looks kind of green?"

Asuka grimaces. "Just throw it out, Fubuki, please."

"I was just asking."

"When was the last time you cleaned out your fridge?" Johan asks, raising his eyebrows. Asuka picks up another paper of her own.

"Just before midterms. I haven't really had the time." She looks down at the paper. Then she puts it down and rubs at her temples. Johan picks it up.

" . . . . what does this even _say?_"

"I didn't even try decoding it yet."

Jyuudai looks up from grabbing Asuka's keys. "What is it?"

"A term paper. I think. It might be a text message in paper form."

Jyuudai trots back and looks over Johan's shoulder. _my dek iz vry cohesiv & afectiv b/c i got it frm dr. brown & he sed it wuz gud & wen i ply w/ my roomatez i always win,_ he reads.

" . . . I don't get it."

"I don't either." Johan grabs the pen and scrawls a large 0/40 at the top of the paper. "But 'I got it from Dr. Brown' isn't an answer to why it's a good deck." He looks up at Asuka. "Do you want me to go through the rest of these and give you a break?"

"How many of my students are you going to fail?"

"As many of them as chose to not complete the assignment." He looks up from the paper about Dr. Brown's deck. "You'll thank me this coming semester. Promise."

She shakes her head. "I can get them. But I'll keep it in mind." She smiles at him. "Thanks."

* * *

_It's that time of year when the world falls in love, every song you hear seems to say "Merry Christmas,"_ the radio informs the kitchen. Johan stirs a pot of candied yams. Fubuki checks it from behind him, leaning over his shoulder to look, and then goes back to poking at the turkey in the sink.

"Do people eat this much food in Norway for Christmas?"

Johan pauses. "My family didn't when I was growing up," he says at last. "North School had a really elaborate Christmas, but there are people there from all over Europe."

"What's your family doing for Christmas?"

"I don't know." Johan's tone isn't unfriendly, but there's an edge to it that makes Fubuki wish a little he hadn't brought it up. "My mum hasn't mentioned what she and Annalise are doing. Henrik's probably staying home with a Bible and an economy-sized bottle of Ketel One's finest."

Fubuki spits it out before he can stop himself. "Who's Henrik?"

"If you asked a DNA test, he's my father." Johan stirs somewhat harder than strictly necessary, and a bit of sauce spills on the stove. "Annalise is the kid who was supposed to replace the defective one."

Fubuki reaches out to put a hand on Johan's shoulder, wishing he had a way to say aloud that there is no need for the embarrassed, angry flush on Johan's face. Johan tenses. Then his shoulders fall, and he takes a deep breath that ends in a shaky kind of smile. "She's a great kid, though. She just turned six last month and she's speaking English already."

"She's your . . . . sister?"

"Yeah." The candy-sauce foams up, then boils quickly down. Johan turns down the heat and reaches for his back pocket to pull out his wallet. "Here."

He pulls out a picture of himself sitting on a sled that is clearly not made for adults, legs cocked off to the sides to make space for the little girl sitting in front of him. There is a bright blue and white hat jammed down over her hair and he is holding her hands in his because she, unlike he, has not bothered with gloves, but both of them have jettisoned their coats for what Fubuki assumes is probably a Christmas card photograph. Fubuki studies it—their hair is the same colour, but their eyes are different—and then smiles.

"She's cute."

"People keep thinking I'm her dad."

Fubuki can't help snorting laughter. "Boy, are they off."

Johan tucks the picture carefully back where it belongs and puts his wallet back in his pocket. "You're telling me. Did Asuka say anything about what she was doing with the beans in the fridge?"

"They go in the oven with the pie."

"When does the pie go in?"

"When I open the box."

It's Johan's turn to laugh. Then he stretches. "Feel like taking a break?"

Fubuki glances at the kitchen timer. "Let me go ask Asuka what needs—" He breaks off halfway across the living room. Johan pokes his head out.

"Okay?"

Fubuki turns back around long enough to put a finger to his lips. Then he quietly approaches the sofa and swings Asuka up and into his arms, shifting so her head rests on his shoulder. Johan sees the limp arms when Fubuki turns around and mouths a single word: _sleeping?_

Fubuki nods and skirts the couch, trying to keep an even pace as he heads down the hall and bumps Asuka's bedroom door open with his knee. One of her house slippers falls off, and he makes a mental note to retrieve it. First, though, there is something more important—finding a way to pull down the covers so he can put his kid sister to bed properly.

At last he settles for pulling up the coverlet at the foot of the bed—Asuka is fully dressed and the thermostat is set to a daytime temperature, and if she's truly cold, she should be able to find her way beneath the covers herself. He snugs the coverlet around her shoulders and pulls off her remaining slipper to put at the foot of the bed before retrieving its mate to set by its side. Then he kisses her forehead and smoothes the blanket before leaving, closing the door as quietly as he can behind him.

"If that's what staying over a break does to you, I'm glad I never do," Johan says when Fubuki comes back to the kitchen, pitching his voice low. "Is she okay?"

"Just tired, I think. She fell asleep with a pen still in her hand."

"I kind of get the feeling she took me too literally." Johan pulls the stopper on the teakettle and pours water over a pair of teabags. "If it's that bad, they should be able to figure out for themselves why they didn't get marks. You shouldn't have to correct every single misspelling if you just write 'spell check' on the front."

"You don't know Asuka very well." Fubuki takes Johan's mug and sets it on the table next to his own. Johan grabs the sugar bag, then pauses and brings the bag of potatoes to the table to peel, as well. "Your kids aren't this much of a problem?"

Johan shakes his head. "But you have to start early." He takes a sip of tea. "Otherwise they'll walk all over you. Most of mine are great."

"Sounds like you have an easier time than Asuka does."

Johan laughs a little. "Asuka doesn't have to deal with dating four different guys every week, depending on which tabloid you're reading." He puts down the peeler long enough to take another sip, and Fubuki picks it up. Johan reaches for it, then gets a paring knife to cube with, instead. "There's nothing more embarrassing than having to teach a sex ed class because you're the only member of staff who actually knows something about safe gay sex and having someone ask you in questions 'how do you have sex with someone that much taller than you?' and there's some two-year-old picture of you and Ryou Marufuji sitting at the same table at an award ceremony getting passed around the room."

Fubuki can't help snorting into his tea. "Ryou's straight."

"Tell it to the _National World Weekly_. I keep meaning to call him and tell him he owes me a steamy weekend in the Bahamas, but I'm not sure that'd go over too well."

Fubuki glances up at him. "You'd do that?" he asks, and Johan shrugs.

"I might have when I was sixteen. Now I just read the magazines I confiscate in class and try to figure out how Johan Andersen's love life can be so much more interesting than mine." He takes another sip of tea. "A couple of weeks before term started there was one from Britain that said I was dating Edo when we hadn't even been in the same country in over a month. _That_ was awkward."

Fubuki makes a face. "Photoshop is one of the world's greatest evils when it's put into the wrong hands."

Johan gets to the end of the peeled potatoes and gets up to run water over the cubes. "I saw a picture of you and some girl with red hair and Asuka's body a few months ago. I wasn't sure if I should laugh or just wonder what kind of sick human being takes a picture of a pair of siblings and then pastes in somebody else's head as a way to go 'hey, look who's screwing this week!'"

It's Fubuki's turn to make a horrible face. "Please tell me you made that up."

"I wish I could. I was trying for three or four minutes to figure out why this girl didn't look right and that's when I realised I recognised the bracelet she was wearing." He puts the rinsed potatoes in a covered bowl and comes back to cut more. "Some people just don't know when to quit. Sex sells, I guess."

"You're not dating anybody they can sell papers with, huh?" Fubuki puts a freshly-peeled potato in Johan's pan. Johan shakes his head.

"Not dating period. Last year I ended up with this guy who started doing things like being pissy if Jyuudai came to stay and telling me I shouldn't call my mum so much because it racks up the phone bill—it was my phone and it was once a week, just for the record—and then he started calling every night at eleven to find out if I was in bed and that was it."

"Short pier, long walk, find one and take the other?" Fubuki asks, and Johan nods.

"Pretty much. I'm twenty years old, I think I can put myself to bed, thanks." He stares at the potato cubes, then puts his knife down next to the pan. "After that I just kind of said forget it. It's not worth the circus."

"Maybe you haven't met the right guy yet." Fubuki takes the pan, knife, and peeler to the sink. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Johan shaking his head.

"Actually, I met the perfect guy. Just one problem."

"He had a boyfriend?"

"He had a wife." Fubuki tries not to laugh. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Johan grinning. "Go ahead. I know. You're not the first one to tell me."  
"Maybe there's another one out there you haven't met yet."

Johan looks up from his cup. "What, do you have somebody in mind?"

"Actually—"

"We're back!" a voice calls from the living room. Both of them jump, and then Jyuudai walks into the kitchen with a much calmer-looking Yubel behind him. Johan grins at them.

"Have fun?"

Jyuudai turns on the flame under the teakettle. "Yeah. They have a rock wall over there." He grins back. "I didn't think I was going to get Yubel down."

"It's a cheap imitation of a situation too complicated for a human being to handle," Yubel says. None of them are fooled by her dismissive tone of voice. "I suppose it's adequate when nothing else is available."

Jyuudai smiles at her from over his shoulder as he gets out a pair of mugs. "Where's Asuka?"

"Napping. She fell asleep grading papers."

"Oh." Jyuudai peeks curiously at the yams on the stove. "Are we making dinner, then?"

"You can make dinner. I've been standing over that damned stove all day long," Fubuki answers. Johan holds up his hands.

"Don't look at me, I have been too."

Jyuudai pokes his head into the fridge. "Is there even anything in here that's not for tomorrow?"

"I think there's TV dinners in the freezer," Fubuki tells him. Jyuudai opens the freezer and looks, then pulls out a box and looks at the back.

"It takes an hour."

"An hour's not bad," Johan protests. "You should see some of the stuff I make at home when I actually have time to cook."

"Yeah, but I'm starving now!"

Johan and Yubel roll their eyes in perfect unison behind Jyuudai's back, for once in perfect agreement.

Asuka isn't the only one to think some things will never change.

* * *

"I attack Air Hummingbird with Sapphire Pegasus—"

"No, you don't, I've got a trap!" Jyuudai flips up a card on the mat they've borrowed from Asuka. "Negate Attack."

Johan makes a face. "Turn end."

"My turn!" Jyuudai declares gleefully. "I use Darkman's effect to summon Neos in attack mode and attack Sapphire Pegasus—"

"And I activate a trap." Johan turns over a card of his own. "Rainbow Life." He discards and adds 700 points to the pad of paper to his right. "Thanks."

Jyuudai sticks out his tongue. Johan snorts laughter. Yubel, sitting to Jyuudai's left, makes a horrible face. "Turn end."

"My turn." He examines his cards. "I summon Amber Mammoth—"

"It's ten to eleven, just so you know," Asuka says, coming into the kitchen with a large tray of sugar cookies. Behind her is Fubuki, balling up the last of the waxed paper they frosted on. Johan jumps.

"It's what?"

"Ten to eleven," she repeats. "If you're still going tonight—"

"Damn it!" He glances back at the duel mat. Jyuudai sweeps together Johan's field.

"I can help Asuka finish food tonight. Rematch tomorrow. I'm still going to beat you."

"Don't count on it," Johan tells him, squaring his deck and putting it back in its worn leather case. "You haven't seen me duel in over a year."

"Except on TV," Jyuudai answers. "I still get to one every once in awhile, you know."

Johan shakes his head and slides his feet into his boots. Then there is a touch on his shoulder, and he looks up to see Fubuki standing next to him with a pair of coats draped over his arm.

"Mind if I go with you?"

"If you want." Johan stands up and reaches for his coat. Fubuki holds it out, instead, and after a moment's pause Johan slips into it.

"Thanks."He glances up at the clock and almost curses again. "Aww—"

"You know, I can drive," Fubuki says. "Even in snow."

"In a snowstorm?"

"Sure."

Johan glances at the clock again. With the front door of the flat open, he can just hear the sound of the church bell. At last he nods.

"Come on, let's go."

* * *

To Fubuki, the world of the church is both unusual and in some ways downright alien. There are stained-glass windows that would be beautiful if not for the scenes of unbelievable violence shown on them—a man in a robe being beaten, thrown to the ground, and finally hung contorted and limp from a gigantic wooden cross. There is a white statue of a woman with a scarf over her head, holding out her arms and with the image of a heart carved in a circle on the front of her robes. Fubuki wonders if this is the Little Therese Johan called his favourite. There are candles all over the place, and several men at the front in odd white robes. Johan looks serene enough when he sits on one of the high-backed benches, but Fubuki is reminded strongly of the point in time where he genuinely thought he might lose his sister forever to madness. Johan leans over to whisper in his ear.

"They're just liturgical robes. Relax a little—"

"Peace be with you," a voice booms out of nowhere, and Fubuki's head jerks up for a moment before he realizes someone has rigged a wireless mic. To his right he hears Johan answer—"And also with you"—and then everyone stands, reaching for the books sitting in the racks on the back of each bench. Johan turns to the necessary page almost without looking and indicates the prayer the priest is reading. After a few moments Fubuki gives up on following it and simply looks around quietly, trying to soak in the candles and statues and odd things he has no names for. Then Johan is sitting again. Fubuki follows suit. Then he hears the priest tell everyone to stand and turn to page 398 in the hymnal located in the seat back. _Is this church or an exercise class?_

Johan opens the book and turns the side of it up. Fubuki reaches over to pull it down where he can see. He has just enough time to recognise that he knows the song from the Christmas movies that have been playing almost nonstop on television since American Thanksgiving, and then someone cues up an organ.

Johan does not sing in English, although the words he is singing—_glade jul, hellige jul, engler daler ned i skjul_—match the melody of everyone else around them. Fubuki tries to find a way to disprove what Johan has said about his musical talent and can't. _I might be able to carry a tune in a paper bag, but I wouldn't know what to do with it_—it is an honest description of the voice he is hearing, which is reasonably on-key and close enough to the notes indicated on the staff that anyone with a layman's ear for the music would never hear a difference. He considers trying to pick up in the middle of the verse and doesn't—he could probably do it, but it doesn't take a genius to interpret the faint dull flush that appears on Johan's face when Fubuki traces down the staff to find the English lyrics, and so he stays silent.

The music comes to an end. Johan touches his forehead and makes a motion across his shoulders and bows his head. Fubuki watches him out of the corner of one eye, aware that the others in the sanctuary are almost completely silent. Some murmur, but it is a quiet and private sound.

Then that booming everywhere-all-at-once voice suggests to the people around him that they share in the sign of peace. He turns to ask Johan what the sign of peace is, exactly, and is just in time to see Johan being embraced and welcomed by a tiny, fluffy woman who might as well have "grandmother" tattooed on her forehead in bright neon letters. As far as Fubuki knows, Johan's never met the woman in his life. _He really wasn't kidding when he said Americans are weird about religion._

The ceremony goes on, the second half of it no more comprehensible to him than the first—readings from books and what seems to be quite a lot of praying. There is something oddly melodic about the sound of English behind him and Norwegian off to the side of him, both speaking in the same rhythms and patterns, and so when he tires of trying to follow—Yubel is right, he thinks, there's something really very odd about this whole virgin birth thing—he simply listens to the way the two lines of speech flow together, two different languages saying the exact same thing.

Then there is another song, and the people in the front stand and begin a processional toward the priest. Johan shifts.

"You okay?"

Johan nods. "Communion. They probably do it by rows so the priest doesn't get mobbed." He hands his hymnal to Fubuki and stands up. Fubuki tunes back into the words, gloria, in excelsis deo, as Johan takes his turn walking down the aisle. Fubuki watches, but six rows back is too far, and although he can see there is some exchange with the priest he has no idea what it is. Johan comes back and takes his seat.

"What was that?"

"Like I said. Communion." Johan reaches for the hymnal. "It's a . . . kind of like a reenactment of the Last Supper."

" . . . the what?"

Johan opens his mouth to answer, and then the music changes. "I'll tell you later."

Fubuki listens again, still quiet, while the people around him sing that rocks, fields, and plains repeat the sounding joy. Then the music ends, and people start filing into the aisle to greet each other. Johan slips easily through the crowd and out. It takes Fubuki a little longer, but he does get there—eventually.

"That's midnight Mass, huh?"

"Yeah." Johan looks out the window at the snowbanks piled up on either side of the street. Fubuki glances at him out of the corner of one eye, then slows to a crawl to get over a corner with no cinders laid yet. "It must have been pretty boring for you."

"Nah." He stares at the road. There's new ice below the thin scrim of snow—not something to be ignored. "It was kind of interesting to watch. Even if it didn't seem very . . . the word I grew up with is 'enlightened.'"

Johan doesn't turn his eyes away from the few snowflakes still skirling down. "What do you mean?"

"Who was being beaten on those windows?"

"It's the passion of Christ. His trial and his death." Johan finally turns, although only enough to look at Fubuki from the corner of his eye. "How is that unenlightened?"

"It just seems really violent."

"The person Christianity's based on wasn't like that. Just the people who killed him for walking around telling people to love one another."

"Screwed-up people."

"No kidding."Johan opens his door almost as soon as Fubuki pulls into the faculty parking lot and manages to get halfway across in spite of the ice before Fubuki can even get the key out of the ignition.

"Hey, wait!"  
In spite of Fubuki's call Johan doesn't stop until he reaches Asuka's door. Then he rattles the handle.

"It's locked."

"Locked . . . ?" Fubuki reaches out a hand to try the knob himself. No, it isn't stuck; even a stuck knob would move a little. But the lights are on, and looking through the window, across the living room and into the kitchen he can see the light on the radio, still playing. He turns his key in the lock cautiously, ignoring—with effort—the part of himself that wants to bull through the front door and find out what on earth would possess his sister, quiet, careful Asuka, to lock the door when her car is still sitting in the parking lot, doubly so when she knows what time he and Johan were set to return. He opens the door, letting it swing quietly, and touches his deck in his pocket to be sure he has it to hand before calling his sister's name.

Asuka does not answer, but there's no sign that anything in the flat has been taken or moved. Asuka's duel disk is still sitting under the end table, Jyuudai's jacket is still on her coat rack . . . and Asuka's boots are still sitting beneath her own coat, dry and untouched. Johan heads for the kitchen. Fubuki looks down the hall. Asuka's bedroom door is shut, but the others are open, and there are no lights in the bathroom or either of the guest rooms.

_Maybe she went next door for something._

Fubuki follows Johan into the kitchen, taking the pitcher of green tea out of Johan's hand to pour himself a glass. "Are you okay?"

There is a long moment during which Johan does not speak and the only sound Fubuki can hear is the radio—_we'll frolic and play in the Eskimo way, walking in a winter wonderland_. Then Johan sets his glass on the table with a muffled thump.

"You know, I know what I sounded like. You didn't need to rub it in."

Fubuki blinks at him. "What?"

Johan turns around. "I wasn't in time with everyone else. I know. You didn't have to point it out."

Fubuki stares for a moment. Then he remembers touching the page of the hymnal, searching for the place in the music where he could start, and shakes his head. "I wasn't pointing anything out. That song's been all over television for weeks and I thought I might know the words well enough to sing it." He puts his own glass down. "I was just trying to find the right spot in the music, Johan. That's all."

"You changed your mind."

Fubuki nearly asks why it matters. Then he more closely examines Johan's face. _I wonder—_

"I kind of had the feeling if I started singing people would know who I was. I figured you wouldn't want the attention." He shrugs a little. "I know I can be loud."

He reaches out to take Johan's hand before he can otherwise occupy it with his glass of tea. Johan looks up at him, and Fubuki reaches for his other hand.

"I went because I wanted to spend time with you. Not so I could decide whether or not I wanted to be your talent agent. Everybody's got something they're good at that makes them happy. Just because your thing isn't the same as mine doesn't mean it's worth less."

Johan tugs his hands away restlessly and reaches for his tea. _Acting hastily in fear is as bad as acting hastily in anger or love, if not worse,_ Fubuki hears a voice in the back of his head say. He barely considers this advice. _Sometimes a bad choice is the only one you can make, Yubel,_ he thinks.

Johan's face is not as smooth as it looks—there is a prickle of five o'clock shadow where Fubuki's lips touch his cheek, and the skin beneath it is just a little windchapped. Then he pulls back and waits to either get hit or get questioned.

Johan picks the latter. "What—"

"I was going to ask you earlier before Jyuudai came in if you'd go out for something to drink with me tomorrow night." He can see the "no" forming on Johan's lips and holds up a hand before Johan can give him the automatic rejection notice. "I've wanted to ask you almost since we met up again when I was doing that damned movie. No strings. If you like it and want to do it again sometime, we could. If not . . ." he shrugs. "If not, we don't have to. It's your choice."

Fubuki is very aware that for the first time in his life, he is asking someone who is far more likely to say no than yes. He can see it as clearly as if someone had penned it on Johan's face with one of those gigantic markers with a wedge for a tip. He lets his hand fall and waits. At last Johan opens his mouth.

"On Christmas?"

Fubuki shrugs. "It's not like we're doing much of anything after washing up from dinner tomorrow."

Johan studies him, his eyes trained on Fubuki's face. Fubuki wonders what it is he's trying to see there.

"All right."

Fubuki smiles at him, a grin bright enough to light up the entire kitchen. Then he hears a door slam.

"—never again!" Asuka's voice says. "And I'm warning you now, Yuuki Jyuudai, if you even _try_—"

The end of whatever Asuka is saying gets cut off by Jyuudai's laughter. Then the pair of them walk in, each with a plastic shopping bag, Jyuudai holding together the back of Asuka's light summer halter, which seems to have come apart at the ties.

"It wasn't on purpose," Jyuudai protests. Asuka tries to reach for Jyuudai's shopping bag and ends up having to make a mad scramble for her top, instead.

"Don't _do_ that!" She drops her own bag. It hits the floor with a dull thud. Fubuki grabs the ties at the back of her neck and pulls them closed again.

"Sis, do I want to know—"

"Don't mind them, they spent the last twenty minutes getting hot and sticky under a palm tree," Yubel tells him from the doorway. Fubuki hears Johan try to laugh and instead end up choking on his tea. Asuka flushes. Jyuudai doesn't let go of the back of the halter, although he does attempt shooting a _look_ back over his shoulder. Yubel raises a brow on one side.

"Don't look at me that way. I was there, I saw it."

"Asuka ran out of sugar," Jyuudai cuts in, before Yubel can get well underway. Asuka feels the strings at the back of her neck and then stands up.

"Do you know there isn't a single store in this town open at a quarter to midnight on Christmas Eve?" Asuka asks. Fubuki raises his eyebrows.

"You look like you found one pretty easy."

Jyuudai sticks his free hand in the pocket of his jeans and fishes around. Then he pulls out a scrap of paper and hands it to Fubuki.

"Food Lion—_Honolulu?_" Fubuki stares up at him. Jyuudai shrugs sheepishly.

"I figured we could try somewhere it wasn't really late yet as long as we tried to blend in. I'm just . . . not really used to going through with someone who hasn't got any kind of energy I can use to pull them through with and it kind of . . . " He pulls something else out of his pocket. Fubuki recognises the string that ought to have held the halter together up the back. "I think I might owe you a new shirt, Asuka."

"Right now I don't care as long as I get out of this one so I can cook," she says. "Every time I move it keeps trying to swing open."

"I'm trying to hold it, I think part of it got turned inside out when we crossed time zones—"

"I'll get it," Fubuki cuts in, and he takes the side of the halter. "C'mon, sis. You've got goosebumps already."

"What are you putting in?" Johan asks, and grabs Asuka's shopping bag off the floor. Asuka does not allow herself to be herded, exactly, but she does step a little closer into Fubuki's arms. The clothing she is wearing is not meant for the kind of weather even the radio acknowledges in the plainest terms: _baby, it's cold outside._

"Beans. And sweet potatoes. And the pie. The sugar's for something else. But thank you."

"No problem." His phone rings, and he rolls his eyes. "Come _on_, Edo—?" He frowns at the number, then picks up. "Hello?"

Fubuki watches a grin spread across Johan's face. "Yes. Yeah, I—uh-huh. Yeah. Just a minute." He cups a hand over the mouthpiece. "Is it too late to go to the airport?"

"It'll take fifteen minutes at this hour," Asuka says. "Why?"

"They found my suitcase."

Fubuki starts laughing almost hard enough to lose his grip on the edge of Asuka's shirt. Jyuudai grins.

"Seriously?"

"Yeah!" The grin fades just a little. "I just don't want to keep everyone up—"

"There's keys in my jacket," Fubuki tells him. "Be careful."

Johan gives him a look worthy of Yubel. "I grew up in _Norway._"

" . . . point."

Fubuki sees Johan's face out of the corner of one eye as he leads Asuka off to attempt untangling her from the mess of fabric Jyuudai has made of her shirt (an attempt, he suspects, that will end with scissors). Johan leans over to speak almost into Jyuudai's ear.

Jyuudai answers. Johan laughs. Yubel rolls her eyes.

They set the bags on the table, and Johan turns his head just enough for Fubuki to see him smile.


	5. December 25

**Title**: A Winter's Tale  
**Chapter Title**: December 25  
**Author**: Nina/**TechnicolorNina**  
**Fandom**: Yu-Gi-Oh!: GX  
**Genre**: Humour/Romance/General  
**Pairing/Characters**: Jyuudai, Yubel, Asuka, Fubuki, Johan  
**Word Count**:8 540  
**Spoilers:** Post-series.  
**Story Rating**: PG-13  
**Chapter Rating**: PG-13  
**Story Summary**: The folks with nowhere else to go all gather at Asuka's for Christmas. It transpires that Yubel doesn't know what Christmas _is_, Asuka's pile of term papers just keeps growing, and something odd is going on with Fubuki and Johan . . . who just wants to get away from jet lag and Edo Phoenix.  
**Chapter Summary**: Christmas Day. People get gifts. Yubel gets something special. Dinner is had and Fubuki and Johan talk.  
**Notes**: Johan's conversation with his little sister is basically "So, did Julenissen [Norwegian version of Santa Claus] bring you anything?" If you ask what it means, I reserve the right to laugh madly and tell you to go read the author's notes that are NOT just there for decoration, kthx.  
**Feedback**: There may be something out there that's better than a review containing concrit, but if there is, I haven't found it yet. So if you have two minutes and you wouldn't mind? Please? Arigatou. (And concrit is cool. Flames are not.)  
**Special Thanks/Dedications**: This chapter is dedicated to **eelpot** from LiveJournal, who was kind enough to translate Johan's conversation with his sister.

* * *

_And so this is Christmas, I hope you have fun  
The near and the dear ones, the old and the young  
A very merry Christmas, and a happy new year  
Let's hope it's a good one, without any fear._

-- "Happy Xmas (War is Over)," John Lennon

* * *

"This Santa Claus of yours doesn't really exist."

Jyuudai lets out a sort of fuzzy sound and rolls over. "Wha?"

"I've been up all night and there hasn't been a soul who's come into this flat from outside." Yubel sits on the side of the bed, her wings cast far back over it to keep them from bending in ways they are not meant to go. "I'd know if they had."

Jyuudai sits up, still yawning, and looks at the clock. "Yubel, it's seven in the morning."

"Yes, and your hostess wanted to be up by six o'clock to put something in the oven and appears to have missed her alarm clock," Yubel tells him. "Although I hardly see what there is to celebrate if the figurehead of your tradition is false."

"We're all adults, he wouldn't stop here," Jyuudai mumbles, and swings his legs off the bed. He takes no more than a step before stumbling spectacularly over a large object that was not on his floor the night before and flailing at thin air to stay upright. Then Yubel's arm is around his chest and pulling him back to equilibrium. There is a thin and slightly discontented moan that trails off into a slight and highly incoherent mumble. Jyuudai looks down.

"Johan?"

"He decided sometime around two o'clock that your floor would be of more comfort to him than the bed that served him so well the night before last," Yubel says.

Jyuudai reaches for the hooded sweatshirt on the chair by the bed and pulls it on. "If he didn't want to sleep with Fubuki then why didn't he just use the bed in here?"

"Ask him when he wakes. It certainly wasn't my decision." Yubel sits back on the bed and swings her legs up, letting out a small yawn as she does.

Johan makes a quiet sleeping noise. Jyuudai bends over to shake his shoulder. "Johan?"

Johan stretches and sighs, then curls up again around the pillow he brought from the other bed. Jyuudai shakes him again. "Johan—"

"Nnnmmmnhhh." Johan twitches a little, dragging the throw blanket over his shoulders closer around him. Jyuudai gives him one last, heavy shake.

"Johan, it's Christmas!"

"Nnngh?" Johan's eyes flutter open and stare blearily upward. Then he pushes himself up to sitting with one arm, looking confused as the blanket falls down into his lap. "What—"

"If I had left you sitting against that chair all night long with no blanket Jyuudai would never have let me hear the end of it," Yubel tells him, her voice sharp but not entirely unfriendly. Johan stretches again and rubs his eyes.

"What time is it?"

"Too early," Jyuudai grumbles. Yubel harrumphs.

"Were it summertide, the sun would be two hours in the sky already."

"Yeah, well, it's not summertide," Jyuudai mumbles. Johan chuckles and looks up at the bedside clock.

"It's seven already?"

"What do you mean 'already'?" Jyuudai is still scrubbing his eyes, and looks a little irked at how easily Johan seems to have come awake.

"I'm usually up by six on Christmas. Come on." He grabs Jyuudai's hand and tugs. "Let's go. We can put coffee on and by then Asuka and Fubuki should be—"

Yubel sees the circle of light in the living room by the time Johan gets to "coffee," but says nothing—she's more interested in knowing who has been walking around this flat so softly she never heard a sound. Her need to be on high alert is only slightly allayed when she sees Fubuki standing in front of the lighted Christmastide tree, reaching up a single hand with a sparkling glass shard hanging from it. He tips the small silver hook on his hand over his finger and onto a tree branch, then turns at the sound of the boys' footsteps and raises the finger to his lips with a quiet and, in Yubel's opinion, not quite trustworthy smile. There's something in it that wants not to be caught out.

Fubuki rearranges some of the glittering silver strands Jyuudai called 'tinsel' to cover the shard. Then he meets them halfway across the floor, his voice pitched low.

"Morning."

"Everything okay?" Jyuudai asks, his own tone quiet. Fubuki nods.

"Asuka was up until three. I figured I'd let her sleep til eight. She wanted to get stuff done this morning."

"Wasn't she going to—"

"Put the ham in the oven at six that I put in at five-thirty? Yeah." Fubuki nods them toward the kitchen and pulls a pair of coffee mugs out of the cupboard. Then he glances at Yubel, who waits by the stove, and pulls out another.

"Are you always up this early, or just at Christmas?" Johan asks, getting the milk out of the fridge. Fubuki grins, and now that grin is changed—perhaps only a desire to let his sister sleep instead of a surreptitious and intended injury, after all, although Yubel thinks on that score she will keep her own counsel awhile.

"I get up pretty early most of the time, but I make a special exception for holidays." He holds the milk over Johan's mug and is waved off (no cream, but plenty of sugar; this is a routine Yubel knows well for many reasons). He glances up at Yubel, who stares back at him for several moments before realising he is enquiring, without actually speaking, what she would like to drink.

"Only milk, if you please," she tells him. He raises an eyebrow, but fills the mug with milk and passes it to her. She waits until Jyuudai has his own cup in hand and has taken a sip of his coffee, and then she takes a large swallow of her milk and keeps on drinking. She regrets not a moment of the time she has spent with him, but life Jyuudai's way means the fresh foods on which she grew up are a rare treat she is not too foolish to enjoy thoroughly when she gets them.

Fubuki puts bread in the toaster. Jyuudai sips his coffee. Johan takes out a box of raisin bran and pours a bowl. "What do you do for Christmas?"

"Usually? Open presents and eat," Fubuki answers. "This year we get to open presents, then clean up because Asuka's got something like a dozen kids coming over to eat and they've got to sit somewhere."

"When are they coming?" Johan swallows a mouthful of raisin bran and stares at Fubuki across the table.

"One, I think." Fubuki's toast pops up, and he slathers the pieces with butter before shaking cinnamon and sugar over them in liberal amounts. He glances at the clock. "I guess I better wake Asuka."

"Try to do so in a manner that won't wake everyone within the perimeter of this campus when she starts shouting," Yubel suggests, raising a brow as Fubuki gives her a slightly dirty look and wanders out. Then she gets an orange out of the refrigerator and sits at the table. From the hallway she hears the sound of Asuka's door opening, and Fubuki calling a cheerful—and unnecessarily loud—greeting to his sister. There is a creak of bedsprings, and then Fubuki lets out a curse to make a trader from her own land proud. Asuka speaks, her voice still blurred by sleep. Her brother scolds her—the words themselves are slightly incoherent, but there is no mistaking the tone—and then there is the sound of the door closing and his feet coming back down the hallway.

"She was sleeping under a _lap throw_ in her _underwear_ in _December!_" Fubuki informs the kitchen in a voice that cannot quite decide if it is startled or outraged. Jyuudai looks into his mug, and when he speaks there is an undercurrent of laughter Yubel isn't certain anyone else actually hears.

"What did you do, swan-dive into the bed?"

"She's not usually _mostly naked_," Fubuki hisses back, and Yubel raises her hand to hide her own twitching lips as Jyuudai snickers into his coffee.

"I sleep in my underwear in December," Johan says. Then he takes a large bite of raisin bran and swallows just as Fubuki opens his mouth—to say what he doesn't know, Yubel thinks, if the look on his face is any indication. "I just usually wear something else on top of it."

"I—"

Asuka pads into the kitchen, rubbing sleep from her eyes with one hand and trying to tie her dressing gown with the other. Fubuki nods at her.

"Happy Christmas. I almost didn't recognise you with your clothes on."

Asuka yawns and reaches for the coffeepot. "The next time you feel the need to pull my covers off, Fubuki, _don't_." She adds milk to her coffee, takes a sip, and then blinks heavily, finally focusing on the table. "Happy Christmas."

Jyuudai grins at her. "Happy Christmas." He takes another swallow of coffee. Johan nods and holds up a hand, his mouth full of cereal. At last he swallows and adds his own salutation. Jyuudai stretches.

"When do you do presents?"

"Now would be good, actually. I have to vacuum after we—" Asuka yawns again, the last of her sentence lost. Fubuki squeezes her shoulder. Johan finishes his raisin bran and rinses his bowl before putting it in the dishwasher.

"Then let's go now," he urges. "If we finish by nine we should have plenty of time."

Yubel follows the group into the living room and sits on a footstool so she can stretch her wings out behind her. Jyuudai sits by her leg and leans against her, one hand against the back of her leg. She reaches down to stroke his hair as the other three find places on the floor and Fubuki reaches under the Christmastide tree to take out the first package—a box wrapped in red and silver, mostly square.

"Jyuudai. It's from Johan."

"Do me a favour and try to not have to abandon it on a mountain somewhere because one of the Harpie Sisters just grabbed you and you're trying to make a run for it, would you?" Johan says, folding his legs beneath him. "I'd rather replace it than you, but after what you did with your trainers—"

"You step on _one_ Man-Eating Plant, and he never lets you live it down," Jyuudai comments, tearing into the paper on the box. "Seriously, Johan, you're worse than Yubel sometimes—hey!" He looks up at Yubel, who stares right back with her hand still firmly on the lid of the box.

"I resent that."

"It's true," Jyuudai protests. "You weren't the one freaking out because I ended up with half a shoe." He tugs lightly on the lid of the box. Yubel finally pulls her hand away, although she doesn't take her eyes away from his until he puts his hand in the box to find out what it contains. "Sweet! Thanks, Johan!"

Yubel watches closely as he pulls a bright red jacket out of the box. The weave is tight, the fabric of the same shade as the tattered school jacket he still refuses to get rid of. Jyuudai runs his fingers over it, feels the soft lining, searches out the pockets. Then he folds it and puts it almost reverently back in the box. Yubel feels a pang as she realises she has no gift to offer him. Then Johan slides something across the floor to her.

"Go on, open it," he urges. Yubel can't help laughing when Jyuudai stares with mock suspicion at what already sounds like a very solid package, then picks it up and shakes it by his ear. He hands it up to her, grinning, and she tries to put it back in his hands.

"You open it," she tells him, hating the inevitable words that must follow. "I don't have anything for you."

"You're here instead of hiding out, aren't you?" Jyuudai says, reaching for her other hand and guiding it to the side of the package. "Go on, it's yours."

Yubel is very aware of four pairs of eyes, all trained directly on her. Then she tears the paper—perhaps if she does as they ask they'll stop _staring_ that way.

Inside is a book: _Famous Myths, Fairy Tales and Legends_, the cover says. She stares blankly up at Johan, who grins at her.

"I thought you might want a bit of entertainment now you haven't got me around to play Scheherazade anymore," he tells her. "You can still have all the stories you'll ever want."

Yubel continues to stare at him, trying to determine whether the book in her hands is some kind of joke. At last she puts the book on Jyuudai's box. "He has something for you."

"I decided to get you exactly what you wanted this time," Jyuudai says, and in spite of herself Yubel has to hide a grin. The grin Johan offers in return borders on outright salacious, and hiding is no longer necessary—she simply makes a horrible face at him.

"Those handcuffs from the 1830s I found at that one auction place?" Johan asks, the grin going from salacious to outright deviant.

"Not exactly." Jyuudai bends to look under the tree and points at a box. Fubuki leans over to fish it out. Johan's grin never falters.

"Håkon Opdal in leather pants?"

"Getting warmer," Jyuudai answers, now grinning back. Yubel rolls her eyes at them both.

"Don't try telling me it's Håkon Opdal in leather pants and old handcuffs, even you're not that good," Johan says, and Jyuudai snorts laughter.

"No Norwegian goalkeepers were harmed in the making of this gift, Johan."

Fubuki slides a box across the floor. Johan slides a finger under the tape, and then Fubuki speaks.

" . . . do I want to know what handcuffs have to do with any of this?"

"There was this one weekend in Delain—"

"—with a goat," Jyuudai chimes in. Johan gives him a look that tries to be irritated and fails.

"With a goat," he agrees. "You kind of had to be there." Then he rips the paper off the box and gapes. "You—"

"You said yours got stuck in with the gym ones and busted," Jyuudai breaks in. "It's not the best one they had, but—"

"You shouldn't have gotten me one at all," Johan says, almost tearing the cardboard top of the display box in his eagerness to pull out the black-and-blue-patterned football inside. "You've got better things to spend your money on."

"I think I can handle once a year, Johan," Jyuudai cuts in. "Just don't let your kids take this one to the gym, would you?"

"No way." Johan picks the ball up to examine the stitching. Fubuki fishes another package out from under the tree.

"It's yours." He holds it out, and Asuka shakes her head.

"It's yours. Read the whole tag for once."

Fubuki does. Then he holds the package up and examines it from every possible angle, shakes it, and drums his fingers on it. There is the unmistakable sound of cardboard from within.

"Hey, a box! Just what I've always wanted, sis!"

Asuka rolls her eyes. "Just open it, Fubuki."

Fubuki tears the paper off what is indeed a box with a flap at one end, then slides his fingers under the flap. "This thing isn't going to break if it slides out, is it—"

The phone rings. Asuka glances at it, then back at the box. "No. But it's heavy."

"I could tell—no way!" Fubuki opens the binder that falls into his lap, flicking gleefully through the pages of sheet music. "You put this together?"

"I couldn't find a loose-leaf book that had anything I thought you'd play—who's _calling_?" Asuka asks, interrupting herself as she reaches for the phone. "Did Dad say they were staying up?"

Fubuki shakes his head and eyes the phone. "He and Keiko were going to call tomorrow. It almost _is_ tomorrow back home."

"I don't—hello, Asuka Tenjouin speaking," she says into the phone, flicking it on and balancing it between her shoulder and her ear as she reaches out to ball up some of the wrapping paper. "Professor Chronos!"

There is a pause while she listens, and during it, Fubuki quietly puts a box in front of Asuka's place on the carpet. "Yes, I heard," she answers, and then "They were looking for a new administrator, I know—"

Yubel thinks she has never seen such a perfect depiction of surprise as the one that spreads across the girl's face—eyes wide, too startled to even think of raising a hand to cover her open mouth. "You—?" she manages. "Yes. Yes. Let me get—" She scrambles to her feet, steps on the hem of her dressing gown, and goes shin-first into the coffee table. Fubuki starts to his feet. Asuka waves him off and grabs the pen next to the telephone base, uncapping it with her teeth as she reaches for the pad beneath it. She balances the pad on one knee and scribbles down something that has the appearance of a set of dates, still listening. "Yes. Thank you so much— . . . Professor," she adds, after a pause during which Johan grins. "Yes. I will. Thank you. And thank you for waiting—I will. No, I understand. Have a good night, Professor." She hangs up the phone.

"Call me Hans Syndrome?" Johan asks, as she sits back in her place with the notepad still in hand. Asuka glances at him.

"What?"

"'Please, Johan, we're colleagues now. You don't have to call me "Dr. Pedersen" anymore,'" Johan says, mimicking the voice of an older man. "You never quite manage to quit doing it."

Asuka laughs a little. "Guilty. You're never going to believe this." The smile she flashes over the box she has set her pad on has a brilliance beyond any her brother has ever smiled, at least in part because of its rarity. "The administration is having a turnover this semester because Dr. Perlmutter is retiring." The smile manages, somehow, to grow even wider. "They were looking on staff for someone to take his place, and Professor Chronos gave them a recommendation . . . " A kind of glad laugh slips out from between her lips. "I'm going to be Teaching Vice Principal starting next semester. I'll be doing orientation training this summer at the main campus."

"_Yes!_ Way to go, sis!" Fubuki throws his arms around her shoulders and kisses her cheek. Asuka raises a hand to put on his arm in as much of a return embrace as she can manage with her shoulders pinned. Jyuudai leans forward and offers her his hand in the gesture Yubel has come to know as "giving five."

"Congratulations, Asuka!" Johan chimes in from her other side, and she turns the smile on him. "That's as high as you can get without actually being administration-only, isn't it?"

"Unless you're on the main campus, yes," she answers. She looks down at the dates penned on the pad and bites her lip. "I just hope I don't make a mess out of it."

"I would assume anyone influential enough to write a recommendation for your hire would do so only if they believed your capabilities were equal to the task," Yubel points out. Asuka pauses, then smiles.

"You're right."

"You're going to leave Chronos in the _shade_, sis," Fubuki announces, sitting back at last and taking one of her hands to squeeze. "You're going to be fantastic." 

* * *

"Åja? M-m . . . " Johan listens, smiling at the phone, to the high and piping voice on the other end. "Hva var det Julenissen hadde med seg?" The voice on the other end reaches an almost frantic pace, the few words Fubuki was previously able to pick out—mostly the occasional "ja!" in reply as Johan makes the kind of slightly disbelieving noises only ever employed with small children—blurred so much into the rest he can't make out any one syllable from the others. At last the voice slows. Then it picks up again. "Åja?" Johan grins at the phone. "Jo, det går fint. Bare et øyeblikk." He pulls the phone away from his ear and hits a button on the side. "Okay, sett i gang," he says. Then he looks up at the others in the room. "My sister wants to say hello, guys."

"Hello!" Asuka calls at the phone from the front closet, where she's trying to find a sufficient number of folding chairs. Yubel raises her eyes to the mobile with a kind of guarded interest. Then a high-pitched voice fills the room.

"Good morning!" the voice says, each syllable carefully articulated and separate from all the others. Then it giggles. Johan turns off the speakerphone with a chuckle and puts the mobile back against his ear. Fubuki finishes watering the tree and wriggles out from underneath it in time to hear Johan finish his conversation and close his mobile.

"She sounds cute."

"She is." Johan smiles for a moment, then slides his mobile into his jeans pocket. "Asuka, did you want to cut the meat before everyone gets here or after?"

"After," she murmurs, still peering into the back of the closet. "Otherwise it's going to get dry . . . I could swear I had more chairs."

"You know, there's this amazing thing called 'a floor,' sis," Fubuki tells her. "It's flat and stable and people can sit on it." Asuka swats halfheartedly at his shoulder with the seat cushion in her hand.

"You watch your mouth, Tenjouin Fubuki," she says, yawning just a little. Fubuki looks up at her.

"You want to take a catnap?" he asks her. Asuka looks at the pile of half a dozen folding chairs.

"Fubuki, I need to clean these—"

"There's three other people in this flat who can use a washcloth, Asuka," Fubuki interrupts. Then he spots Yubel, who is staring suspiciously at the candy cane Jyuudai is in the process of gleefully attacking. "Four. Go sleep."

"Fubuki—"

"I'll get it, sis, okay?" He gets up and stretches. Asuka shakes her head.

"I didn't ask you here so you could—"

"Help my kid sister? Don't be ridiculous, Asuka." He hugs her, then wrinkles his nose a little. "You might want to wash your hair first. It's dusty."

She looks up at him, the expression on her face stern and the one in her eyes grateful. "You're not going to take no for an answer, are you?"

"Nope." He kisses her nose. "Go clean up and nap. I'll wake you at twelve-thirty. Twelve-fifteen first so you're not rolling out at one. Promise."

Asuka wrinkles her nose. Then she gives up, and goes. 

* * *

"I don't want to leave you alone."

"Johan and Fubuki are both going to be there, Yubel. I'll be fine," Asuka hears Jyuudai's voice protest as Fubuki's hand on her shoulder registers. She sits up and lets the coverlet fall back to her waist. Fubuki squeezes her shoulder gently.

"It's about twenty after," he tells her, his voice soft, and she nods. "Johan just flipped the oven over to warm."

"Good," she murmurs, stretching and feeling her spine crackle just a little. "Thank you."

"That's what brothers are for. Do you want salt on the stairs?"

"If they're not clear. Please. Yes." She swings her legs off the bed and slides her feet into her slippers as Fubuki leaves. Then she heads for Jyuudai's room, where she can still hear the mix of Jyuudai's voice and Yubel's, locked in some kind of argument.

"You're going to be miserable, and then because you _know_ you could sleep you're going to be crabby all night long because you're tired and because you'll know you're being crabby you'll be even more miserable," Jyuudai is saying. "I'll be fine, Yubel. Really. I can take care of myself for two hours."

"My duty is—"

"Already over," Jyuudai says. "You're still here because you want to be." The slightly sharp edge to his voice disappears. "And because I don't want you to leave. I won't do anything stupid, okay? I promise."

"Jyuudai—"

Asuka wonders if there's a way to walk past the room without the pair seeing her and bringing an awkward end to their conversation. She's guessing most likely not.

"You sleep while we eat, the kids go home, and I'll wake you, okay?"

"You propose to sit in that room with a dozen people you don't know—"

"Who have no idea who I am and answer to Asuka," Jyuudai puts in. "Don't forget that part."

"And who could be controlled by the Light, if it suited—"

"And Asuka would know right away, and so would Johan. Relax a little. We're on holiday." There is a pause, and Asuka takes the opportunity to cross the doorway. Jyuudai's eyes are on Yubel's face and Asuka would be ready to swear there is no way he could have seen her, but he turns to look at her all the same. Asuka glances away; she hasn't done anything wrong, but there is something about that quiet gaze that is too intense when she hasn't had a full night's sleep in two days.

"Asuka, who stays for Christmas here?"

She glances back up at him, startled. "People who live too far away to go home, mostly. Some of them don't get along so well with their parents, but they're good kids."

Jyuudai looks back at Yubel, who huffs and looks off in another direction. Jyuudai reaches for her hand, and Asuka decides it might be prudent to put on coffee. 

* * *

Johan is shuffling things onto serving plates when Asuka walks in. She puts one hand on the roasting pan to hold it steady while he drains some of the ham juice, and he smiles at her.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome. Is there coffee?"

"Not unless you want the mud Fubuki made at six this morning, but I just boiled some water for tea and it'd probably heat back up pretty fast if I turned it on." Johan puts the ham juice on the front burner and carefully manoevres the roasting pan back into the oven. Then he flips on two stove burners at once. "Do you have cornstarch?"

"Top shelf to your left," she says, checking the pan on the back of the stove and shutting off the heat under the potatoes as Jyuudai walks in. Asuka looks back at the pan. She has only known Yubel for four days, but long before they met in person she'd known that Jyuudai's companion was a duel spirit, and based on things Johan has said, Asuka assumed them to be very much so united. Hearing them fight is both unsettling and somewhat depressing. Jyuudai reaches the coffeepot, goes to pour it, then changes his mind and empties it into the sink to make fresh. Johan turns his head just enough to address Jyuudai over one shoulder.

"She still thinks you're five years old and can't tie your own shoes?" he asks, and Jyuudai chuckles—a little ruefully, Asuka thinks.

"Nah. She's just worried about me," Jyuudai answers. "But she'll be okay." Asuka slips past him with her pan of potatoes just in time to see him smile. "I told her I'd lie down with her until she fell asleep and she was out before I even pulled up the covers."

Asuka pours the water off the potatoes. "Are you two . . . all right?" she asks at last. Jyuudai stares at her blankly.

"Should we not be?"

Asuka hesitates, wondering if she should tell him what she heard in the hallway. Then she decides to throw caution to the wind. "It just . . . sounded like you were fighting," she admits. Jyuudai continues to stare. Then he starts to chuckle.

"Nah. She's just upset because I don't like her thinking about herself like some kind of . . . I don't know, like a guard dog. She deserves to take care of herself, too. You'd think I told her I'm going to the sixth dimension on my own for a week." Jyuudai pours water into the coffeepot.

"She doesn't trust me," Johan answers, reaching one-handed toward the sink with a cornstarch-dusted glass in hand. "Can you fill this about to the first line at the top?"

Jyuudai takes the cup and fills it. "If she didn't trust you, she'd never set foot in your flat. It's just—"

"Let me rephrase. She doesn't trust me with you." Johan takes the cup back. "Thanks."

"She doesn't trust anyone with me," Jyuudai replies, getting out some coffee filters. "You actually get a lot more trust than most people."

"Consider this my shocked face. I'm kind of busy." Johan stirs a little of the cornstarch into the juice. "Does this mean I'm on guard duty this afternoon?"

"It means as far as Yubel's concerned, you are. I think she missed the bit where anyone who can rip holes straight through dimensions can probably take care of themselves."

"That sounds very reassuring," Asuka tells him as she finds the potato masher and sets to using it. "Try not to turn my apartment inside out when you do it, would you?"

"Hey, I got you home okay last night, didn't I?" Jyuudai asks. Asuka decides maybe it's better not to answer.

The front door opens, and after several moments that are almost certainly Fubuki getting out of his coat and boots, her brother appears and heads for the sink to wash his hands.

"Want me get out plates?" he asks. Asuka shakes her head.

"I'm being totally irresponsible and using paper so we don't have to spend four hours doing the dishes on top of the kitchen," she says. Fubuki reaches above her head for the bag of paper plates.

"Silverware?"

"I think I have enough to just use—"

There is a knock. Jyuudai goes to answer the door, and a voice Asuka finds familiar—Tanya Cordell, asking if Ms. Tenjouin is home.

Asuka looks at the kitchen clock. Five til.

She takes a deep breath and heads for the living room. 

* * *

"All right, ladies, gentlemen—Jake, Jon, enough!—everyone! Could I have your attention just for a minute!" Asuka has to struggle to make herself heard over the general chatter, and even then the sound of her voice is mostly absorbed by the furniture. Johan puts his fingers in the corners of his mouth and whistles, and the general chatter subsides. Asuka sends him a grateful glance and holds up her hand while the girls are quiet, instead of squealing over Pharaoh. Asuka gives just a moment's thought to his presence—_where have you been all this time, you little furball?_—and then addresses the assembled group before their attention can waver.

"There's not enough room for everyone in the kitchen, so we're eating out here," she says. "The food's on the table—you can just walk through and serve yourself. But first—" she waves to put all eyes back on her, instead of having to compete with the kitchen table for attention. "I have some people I'd like you to introduce yourselves to at some point today." She indicates each of her guests in turn, and when she speaks Johan's name she hears Alex Flannigan hiss something at the girl to her left—probably a comment, if her facial expression is any indication, that the second-year in question knows _exactly_ who Johan is.  
Asuka expects a flood of gasps and questions when she introduces Fubuki, even though she gives only his given name—her brother isn't notorious for trashing hotel rooms or going home with two women on one arm and a bottle of wine in his other hand and as a rule the most scandalous thing he's known for is shopping for tomatoes, but his face is still a familiar one to anyone who reads the usually-at-least-somewhat-accurate gossip magazines. There's nothing, though—not until Fubuki turns his head to ask her a question as she heads off. He gets as far as "hey, Asuka," and then there is a quiet squeal from the back of the room.

"It's Ten!" Asuka hears Lacey King say. She forces herself to not roll her eyes as she gestures Fubuki into the kitchen. "Tanya—Tanya! It's Ten!"

Fubuki pauses to look back—he is incapable, she thinks sometimes, of doing anything but listening when he has heard someone say his name—and Asuka hears Tanya Cordell reply with a quietly excited squeal of her own: "David Tennant is here?"

"Who? No, _Ten!_ He's—"

Asuka escapes into the kitchen at last, Fubuki behind her. She leans over to speak in his ear.

"You have groupies."

He chuckles and kisses her cheek. "I'm used to it."

Johan comes in with a pair of students and grabs a paper plate. "Do the adults have to wait until everybody else is served?"

Asuka laughs. "Not at all. Have food." 

* * *

Asuka is not looking in Jyuudai's room on purpose—she's simply putting away the chairs when Johan disappears through the door, leaving it partway open. Asuka glances up to greet him and sees him sitting on the side of the bed, where Yubel has rolled over on her side with her wings wrapped around her and a blanket pulled up to her chest.

"Kids are gone and Jyuudai is somehow managing to have not died from being left alone for a meal," Johan says. Asuka can't see Yubel's eyes over the edge of her wing, but she sees the wing fold back a little, the blanket sliding down it to her knees. "There's still a little bit of dessert if you want some."

Yubel sits up, looking for a moment almost comedically disoriented. Then she folds her wings against her back and swings her legs off the side of the bed, pulling the blanket into her lap and folding it. "Thank you."

Johan waves her off. "We had a rematch duel while you were sleeping." He pauses. "I got him down to 200 life."

"But didn't beat him," Yubel says, and there is a slightly smug tone in her voice to match the note of pride in Johan's own.

"Yet," Johan corrects. Yubel glares at him a little. He smiles back. "Don't count me out yet." She opens her mouth, and he speaks again before she can get underway with a rant at him. "If you want coffee, there's some in the kitchen. Don't let it get cold." He stands up, and she grabs his wrist. Johan looks down at her.

"What is that book for, really?"

Johan blinks at her. "I told you. You really seemed to like some of the stories I told you, so I tried to find a book you might like."

"And the jacket?"

"Somebody's got to take care of that stuff for him." Johan shrugs with his free arm. "He won't do it himself."

Yubel lets go of his arm. Asuka closes the closet door and heads for the living room to get the mat Jyuudai and Johan borrowed from her. Johan holds up a hand in greeting as he crosses the living room.

"Is there any of that pumpkin stuff cut?"

Asuka nods. "I did it while it was still frozen. It's easier." She folds the mat, then decides to follow him. Johan takes a piece of the log roll from the plate sitting on the stove as Yubel walks in. Jyuudai waves cheerily at her, and she sits with him, nibbling at a bit of the log roll he offers her. Fubuki pokes his head into the kitchen, then looks momentarily wrong-footed when he sees his sister sitting with Jyuudai and Yubel at the table. He glances at Johan, who glances at the clock and heads toward the door with the remains of his log roll still in hand.

"Hey, Yubel, think you can handle Jyuudai for a few hours? Somebody's got to make sure he doesn't kill himself by breathing."

Yubel shoots a glare at Johan's back; although he turns his head to address her over his shoulder, there is no good way to stay in that position and not ache. "Just because you're incapable of understanding precisely _why_ it's so important that he be protected—"

"No, I get it, I just think 'being five metres from you is way too far on the off-chance that something happens' is overreacting a bit when you're talking about someone who could make people not exist just by thinking about it. And then probably fix things up so they'd never actually existed at all."

Yubel makes a sound like an angry cat. Johan shrugs at her and leaves the kitchen. Yubel makes a face and puts a hand on Jyuudai's shoulder. Asuka pours a cup of coffee and sits down.

"Do you have any idea where they're going at seven thirty on Christmas?" she asks. Jyuudai shrugs. Yubel shakes her head. Asuka considers her coffee.

"You know, three-way duels are a bit awkward on a mat, but I've got a couple of games I keep for group nights," she suggests. Yubel looks up, eyebrows raised. Jyuudai smiles.

"You're on." 

* * *

"The word is 'romantic'," Jyuudai says. Yubel does not quite smirk as she puts her card in the middle of the table. Asuka groans.

"I have no cards for this."

"Are you conceding defeat, then?" Yubel asks, one side of her brow ridge lifted in challenge. Asuka glances at her cards again, pauses, then puts one in the middle of the table. Jyuudai picks them up.

" . . . 'Green Eyes' and 'My Bedroom'?" he asks, staring at the cards in confusion. Asuka shrugs, but can't hide just a little bit of a blush.

"I didn't have anything else."

"I don't have a bedroom," Jyuudai points out. Asuka blinks at him a little, certain Johan had mentioned Jyuudai staying with him.

"Where do you sleep?"

Jyuudai shrugs. "Sometimes people give me a place to stay if I help them out. If I don't have anywhere else to go I go to Johan's. Means he doesn't have to let it to someone else just to keep it up for eight months out of the year."

"Then wouldn't your room there be your bedroom?"

"Have you ever seen Johan's bedroom?" Jyuudai asks. "It kind of looks like every teacher ever tossed their file boxes in there, and they all exploded. I kind of think that's why he stays on the sofa half the time. He can't sleep in all that paper." He hands the green card to Yubel. "Sorry, Asuka."

Asuka shrugs and deals. She's in the middle of drawing a green when she hears the front door open and Fubuki's voice, telling Johan to shhh because everyone was probably sleeping.

"Not Jyuudai," Johan answers, but he lowers his voice obediently. "He stays up all night and then wonders why he can't wake up until noon."

Fubuki chuckles. Asuka puts the green card down in the middle of the table and then goes to greet her brother, who is asking Johan—among other indistinct murmurs Asuka cannot quite catch—if he passes. Asuka wonders if perhaps they've walked in playing some kind of game of their own; she has been on enough family holidays to know that Fubuki can turn things as ridiculous as "first one to spot five red cards wins" into challenges to keep himself entertained with.

She stops short in the doorway, her mouth falling into a perfect O of surprise. She covers it with her hand, but only out of reflex—she is too shocked to do more when she sees Johan standing on his toes, arms around her brother's neck, the pair of them kissing with Fubuki's scarf still dangling down over his shoulders and Johan not yet out of his shoes.

A hand touches her arm, and she has just enough time to register it as distinctly not human before Yubel leads her back into the kitchen, her grip gentle but firm. Asuka opens her mouth, fails to find anything intelligent to say, closes it, and opens it again. Yubel places a single finger against her lips.

"Yes," she murmurs.

Really, it's all she needs to say. 

* * *

Johan plunks down on the bed, happy to be back in his own pyjamas. Fubuki wanders in from the shower, still toweling his hair. Johan smiles up at him.

"You know, I've been taken on first dates to coffee bars," he says. "And I've been taken on first dates to the movies or minor-league matches. But this is definitely the first time anybody's taken me out to play pool."

Fubuki sits down and grabs a brush. "It wasn't exactly what I was planning."

"I had fun," Johan tells him. "It was kind of a nice change."

"I think that beer went to your head."

"Only for a little." Johan swings his legs under the covers as Fubuki finishes with his hair and hangs his towel over the seat of a chair. "That's why I only had one."

Fubuki curls up under the blanket on his side of the bed. Johan rolls over to look at him. "You're quiet."

"Kind of tired." Fubuki grins at him. "Billiards are hard work."

Johan snorts laughter and snuggles deeper into his pillow. "We should do it again sometime."

"Name a time and place," Fubuki tells him. "I'll be there."

"I'm counting on it," Johan answers. Then he reaches out with his free hand to touch the one Fubuki has left lying on the bed. Fubuki turns his hand over and lets Johan's fingers slip through his own. Johan squeezes his hand.

"This is better."

"Hm?"

"When Jyuudai went missing—when we all came back from that other world," Johan says. Fubuki doesn't answer, not right away—he's too startled by the realization that Johan actually remembers something of his nine days in whatever weird mental purgatory he entered when Jyuudai did not return. "I don't remember a whole lot of what happened between coming back and Yubel doing whatever it was she did to fix my head—"

"That was her?" Fubuki lets his hand drop from the bedside lamp so he can turn to see Johan's face. "I thought it was Jyuudai."

Johan shakes his head as best he can with a pillow in the way. "She was the one who set it up while she was still . . . you know, not right."

"Insane," Fubuki supplies. Johan doesn't argue—just continues.

"She admitted it to Jyuudai and fixed it," Johan says, as though Yubel fixing it somehow excuses her having done it in the first place, Fubuki thinks. "I think that's part of why he trusts her so much. She could have just told him she didn't know what happened and left me that way."

Fubuki remembers a lost boy sitting on an Obelisk Blue bed with half a peach in his hand, asking when the boat to Academy Island is leaving, and squeezes Johan's hand. Johan squeezes back.

"I remember sleeping with you like this. At least once. Maybe twice, I'm not really sure . . . but this is better."

Fubuki turns off the light and swings his own legs under the covers before scooting toward the middle of the bed just a little, offering a wordless invitation. Johan accepts it, rolling over so the two of them are face to face with their arms around each other, the same way Fubuki held him three years ago when Johan was a drifting, confused soul trying to find his way home. This time, though, Johan is not just a quiet, lost weight in his arms; this time, he's hugging back. Fubuki smiles in the dark.

"Definitely." He pauses, trying to think of what important thing he hasn't said. "Happy Christmas, Johan."

"Happy Christmas." 

* * *

"Winner cleans up," Asuka says. Yubel makes a horrible face.

"The winner is supposed to receive a _prize_, not a task," she points out. Jyuudai shoots Asuka a knowing, slightly amused look.

"It saves on arguments," Asuka answers. "I'll get the coffee cups if you get the cards."

"What do you think they're talking about in there?" Jyuudai asks, staring out the kitchen door and into the living room—and by extension, Asuka supposes, the hallway beyond it.

"When Fubuki's involved?" she asks. "It could be anything. Maybe what they're doing when they get back home. Or how many angels you can put on the head of a pin. I don't ask questions where Fubuki is concerned anymore."

Jyuudai's laugh is just a little sheepish. "Yeah . . . what are you going to do tomorrow? Once we're gone, I mean?"

Asuka shrugs. "Finish my grading. Clean up. Lesson plans. There's a New Year party for staff I might go to." She rinses the cups and puts them in the dishwasher. "What about you?"

"Second dimension," Jyuudai answers promptly. "I guess you could say there's a beehive there that needs cleaned out."

Asuka winces in sympathy. "Death Duelists?"

Jyuudai shakes his head. "It's actually a world without dueling. But that doesn't stop the Light. I don't think it's really done more than take sort of a passing look at the place yet, but—"

"Better to not let it get any ideas," Asuka finishes, and he nods.

"Yeah." He puts the lid on the game box. "Everything's put away, right?"

"There are still a couple of things in the drainer, but I'm leaving them there to air-dry," Asuka says. "Trying to use a dishtowel on wooden spoons never ends well."

Jyuudai nods. "Mind if we head to bed?" he asks, and Asuka jumps.

"Not yet. Go wait in the living room. I can't believe I almost forgot—" She hurries out of the kitchen, not looking back to see if Jyuudai is following. She slips into her room and pulls out a particular box from under her bed, then reaches in to pull out something long and thin.

When she comes back to the living room Jyuudai is sitting in front of the Christmas tree with Yubel, speaking quietly into her ear as the two of them look up at the lights. Asuka joins them in front of the tree, getting first to one knee and then sitting alongside them. She puts the thin box in Yubel's hand and receives the same blank stare Yubel gave Johan that morning.

"It's yours," she says, trying to stem that look of confusion. "From Jyuudai."

Yubel's face changes from confused to horrified. She starts to shake her head. "But I haven't—"

Jyuudai stops her with a hand on the side of her face, one finger over her lips. Yubel looks ready to argue. Jyuudai shakes his own head. "I wanted you to have something."

Yubel looks down at the box, wrapped carefully in gold paper and scarlet ribbon. Asuka urges her with a gesture to open it, and Yubel runs her fingers over the edges of the paper. She will open it—Asuka can see that at a glance—but she must first work herself up to doing it. Jyuudai puts one hand on her wing and strokes it, drawing a quiet, rusty-sounding purr Asuka isn't entirely sure Yubel knows she made.

At last Yubel slides one of her smaller, more human fingers under the tape and snaps it. The paper comes away to reveal a box coloured dark red, which Asuka might—or might not, Jyuudai thinks—know to be the royal colour of Delain. Yubel fights momentarily with the box lid and then manages to get the edge of a fingernail under the top to turn it over.

Asuka bites her lip, wondering for a moment if asking Fubuki for help with this particular task was a bad idea. Then she sees Yubel take in a sharp breath, and there is no more time to wonder.

The necklace in the box is not fancy; Asuka's salary does not allow for ornate, and the pendant she finally chose is a simple gold twist, almost a figure-eight, with two tiny rubies—one in the top and one in the bottom. Yubel is staring at it as though Asuka has handed her the crown jewels of England. "This—"

"How did you pick this?" Jyuudai asks, and Asuka is slightly startled—more than she should be, perhaps—to realise he, too, is awestruck.

"I had help," Asuka admits. "I told Fubuki I needed to pick out a necklace for someone and he sort of pushed until I told him who." She looks at the necklace in the box. "He described something to me he saw . . . " She hesitates, not wanting to dampen Christmas with that name when it is the thing that almost destroyed her favourite holiday forever. Then she has a thought: it can only ruin the night if she allows it to do so. Fubuki has already made his peace with it. She is only prolonging her own hurt by letting the word have this kind of power over her, and so she continues, her voice even and sure, cheating the entity of the thing that would strengthen it most. "He saw your mind when he put on the mask to duel you as Darkness and regain his memories," she says. "He didn't know then who he was looking at, but he remembered the necklace. I tried to find one with only one stone like the one he saw, but—"

Yubel shakes her head. "He never had the chance to change it."

"Change . . . ?" Asuka asks. Yubel runs her fingers over the chain.

"Your cinema says you exchange golden rings when you pledge to wed—is it so?"

"Yes," Asuka says. "And another when you marry. They make a set." She thinks of what she saw in Yubel's eyes when the box first fell open, and wonders. "Did you exchange pendants?"

"It was custom. The first stone was a pledge, the second a vow." Yubel looks up at her. "We were never able to complete our vows."

"I think you did that for yourself," Asuka says, almost without pausing. "There's not much you can call incomplete about joining your souls to each other. Maybe that's why this is the closest thing I could find."

Jyuudai reaches into the box and pulls out the chain, finding the clasp and undoing it to fasten around Yubel's neck. He murmurs something in a language Asuka does not understand. Yubel smiles at him and answers. Asuka gets up as quietly as she can, trying to not disturb whatever conversation it is they're having that sounds like none of her business.

She turns back only once, at the doorway to the hall, to turn off the living room lights and smile at the second kiss of the night: Jyuudai and Yubel, illuminated by the light of the Christmas tree.


	6. December 26: Boxing Day

**Title**: A Winter's Tale  
**Chapter Title**: December 26: Boxing Day  
**Author**: Nina/**technicolornina**  
**Fandom**: Yu-Gi-Oh!: GX  
**Genre**: Humour/Romance/General  
**Pairing/Characters**: Jyuudai, Yubel, Asuka, Fubuki, Johan  
**Word Count**: 1 518  
**Spoilers:** Post-series.  
**Story Rating**: PG-13  
**Chapter Rating**: PG-13  
**Story Summary**: The folks with nowhere else to go all gather at Asuka's for Christmas. It transpires that Yubel doesn't know what Christmas _is_, Asuka's pile of term papers just keeps growing, and something odd is going on with Fubuki and Johan . . . who just wants to get away from jet lag and Edo Phoenix.  
**Chapter Summary**: With secrets learned and bonds forged, it's time to head home.  
**Notes**: Someone left me a review noting that I do not use a disclaimer. This is true for two reasons: 1. legally, disclaimers actually do absolutely NOTHING, and 2. the site does not require them. Also, while I LOVE reviews, if you're going to say something like "this is strange for using the characters in such a manner," could you please actually elaborate on what "such a manner" is or why it's strange? Telling me a 93-page story is "strange" without giving me anything to go on is . . . honestly, pointless, because I won't have any idea what you're talking about.  
**Feedback**: I usually get about 30 hits before I get a single review. I know you guys are out there. Make me a happy Nina and tell me what you thought?  
**Special Thanks/Dedications**: And if you have stayed with me to the very end, Constant Reader, this epilogue is dedicated to you.

* * *

"Do you have your passport?"

"It's in my carryon—where's my old deck holder?" Johan lets go of his handful of thin air and slaps at the left side of his belt to be sure he has the Gem Beasts, stowed safely in his Christmas gift from Fubuki and getting acquainted with the newly-added Prism Phoenix.

"I put it in your bag. Did you need it?" Fubuki shoulders his own duffel bag and glances at Johan.

"No, but I want to keep it—do you have any idea where the B concourse is, Asuka?"

"I think you can get there from a tram once you get past security—it's Customs-only. Fubuki, do you have a nametag?"

"Got one and yes I remembered to take off my wallet chain," he answers. Then he glances between the Departures screen and his ticket. "Damn it, I think they changed my plane—"

"Delayed?" Jyuudai asks. Fubuki shakes his head and points to a gate number.

"Leaving early."

"Go on, get out of here! Don't miss it!" Asuka exclaims. Then she contradicts herself by throwing her arms around her brother's neck and waist and hugging him as tightly as she can. "Take care of yourself. I'll see you soon. Call me when you get in."

Fubuki hugs back and kisses her with a cheeky grin. "I will, Ms. Vice Principal."

"_You_," Asuka says; it is really all that needs to be said. Jyuudai and Johan start laughing almost in unison. Fubuki grins.

"Love you, sis."

"I love you too. Don't miss your plane." She kisses his cheek and then he is gone, slipping easily through the metal detector and waving at them from the other side. She waves back and then hugs Johan before he can head off for Customs.

"Take care of yourself," she tells him. Then she glances down enough to look directly into his eyes. "Take care of him."

Johan's mouth falls open a little. Asuka can't help chuckling a little. "How did you—"

"Let's just say a little dragon told me."

Johan snorts and glances at what appears to Asuka to be thin air. "Thanks."

There is a pause, and then he makes a horrible face. Asuka is confused only for a moment. Then she manages to put the pieces together. "She's here?"

"She's always around," Jyuudai says. Then it is his turn to embrace his friend before they part ways again for an undetermined number of months, and he does so wholeheartedly. "I'll call when I can."

"You better. I'm not getting milk if I don't hear from you," Johan answers, but there is warmth in his words. Jyuudai grins at him.

"I will. Promise."

Johan takes Jyuudai's shoulders and studies Jyuudai's face as it goes solemn and still. Asuka wonders what he's looking for—new lines or stray hairs gone silver before their time, perhaps. Maybe he's just memorizing every plane of his beloved friend's face afresh before sending him off to his never-ending battle for the fate of the universe. Then he nods, and Jyuudai smiles again. Johan lets go of his shoulders and reaches for Asuka to give her one last hug and a kiss on the cheek of his own.

"This was amazing," he tells her. "Thank you."

"It was amazing having you here," she shoots back. "Thank _you_."

He smiles at her and Jyuudai and that space that is not thin air and heads off, ducking through a different metal detector and making a face over his shoulder when he's stopped for what Asuka can only assume at this distance to be the rivets in his jeans. Asuka waves at him; to her right she can feel Jyuudai doing the same. Then she nods toward the doors. "Let's get going. I only have fifteen-minute parking."

Jyuudai follows her out to the car and puts his new backpack in the back seat. "You know, I don't think I told you and Fubuki thank you enough for this thing."

"You needed one," she answers, sliding in behind the wheel and buckling in. Jyuudai follows suit. "Everything that's in there should keep, if you need food while you're out saving the world as we know it. I checked online before buying anything."

Jyuudai laughs. "It will. I checked, too. That jerky was a great idea."

"Do you want me to hold onto the old one?" she asks. He shakes his head.

"If you've got a use for it, go ahead. If not—" He shrugs. "I don't think I'm going to need it again."

The bus station no longer has snow piled up all along its sides, and by the old city bus shelter is a narrow inlet that could, with a bit of generosity, be called an alley. It is too narrow to get much light outside the noon hour. Asuka pulls into the dropoff point for the abandoned shelter and puts the car in park; there is nobody around today to ticket her, and she thinks she can take five minutes.

She gets out of the car to get Jyuudai's bag and stands with him on the corner, watching as he shoulders the bag with his new blanket and his supply of food, clean clothes, and cats inside. Then she takes his hands.

"Take care of yourself. And try not to wait seven months to get in touch this time, would you?" she says. Jyuudai chuckles, looking a little rueful.

"If I can't get back myself I'll tell Johan to call you."

Yubel appears at the mouth of the alley, watching them quietly. Asuka glances at her and then looks back at Jyuudai. "I think Johan's probably had enough of phone calls for now. He's probably going to jump for joy when Edo walks. And not because he has any personal interest in seeing him graduate."

"He didn't tell you?" Jyuudai asks. There is no mistaking his surprise. Asuka just shakes her head.

"Tell me what?"

"He checked his e-mail this morning when he got up." He grins. "Got an e-mail from Edo. Apparently he somehow managed to get up just enough time to finish his stuff for the semester."

Asuka starts laughing. Then she reaches up—not as far as she must for Fubuki, but up all the same—to hug him. He hugs back and walks to the mouth of the alley with her, and then Asuka reaches out to do one last thing before they part ways.

Yubel's wings twitch in surprise when Asuka hugs her goodbye. There is a pause just long enough for Asuka to think perhaps she should pull away, and then Yubel's arms wrap around her and she hears a slow purr in Yubel's chest. It is by no means an expert embrace—loose and slightly awkward, it almost doesn't feel like a hug at all—but it is a return of her gesture, and Asuka is smart enough to appreciate it for what it is that goes beyond a simple courtesy.

"Take care of him," she says, some deep part of her a little amused when Yubel's answer comes from so very far above her.

"I do."

Asuka lets go. Yubel reaches for Jyuudai's hand.

"I'll see you soon," she says to them both. Yubel gives her a curt nod, back to her usual prickly nature as soon as Asuka's arms are no longer around her waist. Jyuudai offers a hopeful smile.

"If everything goes right, sure thing." He gives Asuka one last one-armed hug and pecks her cheek the same way Johan and Fubuki did, then turns with Yubel to face the alley.

Asuka watches them until she is absolutely certain their disappearance is not just a trick of her eyes. It occurs to her that she forgot to tell Jyuudai he has more than jerky and dry fruit in his bag, but she doesn't worry about it for long—the bag she and Fubuki picked is big enough by far to fit Pharaoh, and she imagines he'll make sure Jyuudai knows about the ham sandwiches and the slice of pie long before they spoil.

She gets back in the car and turns it on, wanting to heat it back up just a little before she gets going. She reaches to buckle her seat belt and sees a scrap of white paper on the seat next to her. She frowns a little—she is not in the habit of leaving papers around her car—and reaches for it. A $20 bill flutters out of the fold, and she doesn't even have to open the paper all the way to recognise the henscratch Jyuudai calls handwriting.

_Let Johan know what the difference is and I'll get it to you,_ the note says. Asuka looks between the bill in her hand, which Jyuudai can almost assuredly afford even less than she, and then back to the note. Then she tucks the bill back in the note and puts it in her wallet.

"He's just going to have to come back for it, then," she says to the empty car, and puts it into second gear.


End file.
